


The Sands of Jakku

by Wholesaleromance



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Arabian Nights - Freeform, F/M, Fairy Tale Elements, Fairy Tale Retellings, Fairy Tale re-write, Kylux - Freeform, M/M, Rape/Non-con Elements, Reylo - Freeform, Slow Burn, Stormpilot, aladdin - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-12
Updated: 2016-10-13
Packaged: 2018-08-14 15:05:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 15
Words: 52,658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8018677
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wholesaleromance/pseuds/Wholesaleromance
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rey is a street rat and a scavenger in the deserts of Jakku, but when a haggard man approaches her and Finn about a lamp located in a strange and wonderful cave, all of that changes.  Part of the Reylo Anthology: Keeping the Stars Apart.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This story has been a long process and I know you're all waiting for an update for Millennium, which, surprise, I'm still writing, but I hope you'll enjoy this. I have spent months on it and I've worked with a ton of amazing people including the artist Fugue that was the inspiration behind Millennium. This has been an amazing process and I cannot wait for all of you to read it. Thank you so much.

The sands of the desert shimmered in the bright light of the Jakku sun as the troop of soldiers marched with purpose down the steps of the palace to the vehicles waiting for them outside. 

A boy, no older than fourteen, stood amongst the grown soldiers, looking out at the large expanse of desert before him.  It was his first time seeing the outside of the palace walls, and the view was breathtaking.  He had never seen so much  _ space _ .

As he drew closer to his designated vehicle, the sand shifted and quaked under his heels as though alive — yet another experience that was entirely new to him. He had only ever felt marble floors and training mats beneath his feet. Now, he had the chance to experience something animated — almost  _ living _ \- instead of the cold stillness within the palace.

There were other boys like him, brought out for the first time for their very first mission with the older, more experienced soldiers.  It was a rite of passage.  

Today, the Palace Guard had a mission to go south of Jakku, past the mountains, to the fertile crescent of Yavin.  They had been tasked with destroying a village of dissidents, dangerous enemies of the empire, who posed a great threat to all they had achieved. 

He climbed on the vehicle, his mask pulled over his face to keep the sand out.  The protective gear proved ineffective as some of it got through anyway, stinging his eyes and filling his mouth with bothersome grains that made it nearly impossible to breathe easily.  He inhaled, enduring the unpleasant rattle in his lungs.  

As they zipped across the desert, it felt like flying.  They moved so fast over the sand, kicking up clouds of dust, that he could hardly take it all in.  Small trading posts and outlet towns flew past them on their journey, and he soon lost track of where they were. The vehicle moved too quickly for him to catch any more than a cursory glance. 

The soldiers around him stared straight ahead, ignoring the towns they passed.  None of the other students from his group turned away from the front of the vehicle either, and he was suddenly struck with the feeling of being out of place.  

He turned back towards the front of the vehicle and willed himself to behave like the other soldiers that surrounded him.  The Palace Guards didn’t need another reason to look at him with disdain.  They already had far too many to list.   

 

*****

Their destination was on the far reaches of the kingdom. Yavin was one of the few places in the desert that the palace considered to be an oasis.  

It was also home to some of the most dangerous adversaries the palace had ever seen.  Or so he’d been told  —  but now, standing here before these people, he didn’t know how that could possibly be true.  The so-called enemies of the palace were terrified. They cowered in their homes, hiding from the soldiers that began to march into the town square.  

He saw his commander, Captain Phasma, come into view. The soldiers bowed outwards and away from her until she found her way to the center of the guard. Then, as if it had been choreographed, the soldiers circled her. She stood at the center for a long time in silence, eyeing the villagers that recoiled in her presence. She made a noise of disgust and called out a name. 

The people around them flinched and lowered their heads. Phasma called out the name again, this time pulling her gun from her back and gripping it in her hands.  She looked impatient, her clipped tone laced with quiet fury and a dangerous warning.  

Dread filled his chest when a scruffy man entered the square, followed immediately by a woman and a teenage boy, not much older than him, and much too young to be in a situation like this. He was struck, and not for the first time, by the notion that he himself was  _ too young _ to be here.

He winced as he watched the three of them enter the square together. The boy held the woman’s hand so tightly that his knuckles turned white .  She tried to shake him off, to push him back into the crowd, but he held fast until it was too late . The three of them stood before Phasma.  The man’s eyes shone with defiance, his head held high.  The woman and the boy looked on from behind him, their expressions grave.

Phasma raised her gun, the barrel aimed at the man’s chest.  

The young soldier’s heart pounded in his head, blood roaring in his ears.  He wanted to yell for someone to do something, but he knew by now that resisting the palace was futile. Anyone who opposed the palace would be destroyed.  

The woman’s eyes were tight with the dread and despair he felt, but there was something else there in her expression:  _ resignation _ .  As though she foresaw this, as if she had always known this would be their fate.  

He watched from the sidelines as the woman bravely shoved her trembling companion behind her. The boy struggled and fought to remain at her side, mouth open in protest at being pushed back into the crowd. He couldn’t hear the sound of the boy’s screaming over the sudden discharge of Phasma’s weapon. 

She gunned down the man before her and gave the command to take out the rest of the people in the village. 

His own unbidden cry of surprise, anger, and  _ injustice _ was mercifully drowned out by the chaos that erupted around them.  

The unknown woman remained in the square, stock-still, her eyes fixed ahead and away from the man that lay bleeding on the ground. She waited in the center of the mayhem, impassive. The boy she shoved behind her crumpled to the dirt in desolation; hands, chest, and face spattered with blood.  

He watched them closely until someone shouted his designation, calling him back to the task at hand. He had a mission, his  _ first _ mission. He was there to destroy these “ _ enemies” _ of the palace.

But somehow, this moment was more than that. He felt balanced upon a precipice.  Would he continue to serve the palace or would he die here in order to protect these people who, he was somehow certain, were innocent of wrongdoing? 

He ran towards the square, towards the two villagers he’d been watching, his decision made for him. He raised his gun, his hands trembling with anticipation. Someone near him laughed and congratulated him on taking the “hard target.” He felt sick to his stomach when he finally made it through the fray to the woman and the boy.  

Phasma had long-since turned her back on them,  leaving the woman to be taken out by someone, anyone else.  The other soldiers ignored her and the boy who crawled back to kneel at her feet, hovering over the body of the man Phasma had murdered.  Instead, they seemed more occupied with destroying everyone and everything else in the village.  

His eyes hardened with resolve. If nothing else, he  _ would _ save both of them.  

*****

When he reached them, he gripped the woman by her arm, but she was unresponsive as he tried to lead her away from the crossfire.  

Anxiety and fear welled up in his chest and throat.  He was exposed, at the center of a massacre, trying to save the only two people he could. It wouldn’t be long before someone noticed his lack of action. He wanted to scream at her, to  _ force _ her to move, but she remained frozen.

Instead, he turned to the boy still at her feet who was watching him with a quiet curiosity.  

“We have to go,” he said, his voice hoarse.  

The mayhem around them slowly began to die down. He knew they were losing their window of time.

There was fear, mistrust, and anger written on the other boy’s face as he knelt over the man’s dead body.  He wished he could convey just how important it was that they all got out of there within the next few moments.

“Please,” he said, more for himself than for the boy that gazed at him with distrust. “Before it’s too late.”

“Mom,” the boy said, standing up and shifting his gaze from the soldier to his mother.  She didn’t move, didn’t even acknowledge him.

“ _ Mom _ .” He gripped her hand and pulled on her.  Her stance gave  beneath his touch and she wobbled a little, her gaze focusing on her son.  

“Come  _ on _ ,” the soldier said, his voice filled with fear and concern.  The other boy nodded at him, pulling his mother along behind them as they began to run.  

Madness surrounded them at every turn, the sounds of gunfire and screaming filling their ears.  Their feet pounded against the ground in their attempt to escape. 

“FN-2187.”  

A voice that never failed to paralyze him in fear rose clearly above the fray, stopping him in his tracks. The boy and his mother stumbled into him.  

From the shadows the tall woman emerged, lips twisted in a sneer, her cropped blonde hair sticking to her sweat covered face.

“Captain,” FN-2187 replied, voice wavering with fear.  

“What is the meaning of this?” she asked him, her voice calm and threatening at the same time.  He shivered and swallowed hard.  

“I—” He tried to explain, but the words failed him.  

Phasma’s hands twitched on her blaster and FN-2187 blanched in fear.  His muscles tensed, his fingers gripping the gun in his hands.  

She fired before he even thought to raise his gun.

She hit her mark, dropping the woman with one shot to the chest.  

Blood blossomed from the wound. Her mouth opened and closed, final words lost on her lips.  Her brown eyes were wide and locked on her son as the last of her breath faded away, the light dying in her eyes.  

His training strictly prohibited him from feeling grief or disgust at his commanders for any action they might take, just or unjust.  However, in this moment, he felt nothing but anger and pure unadulterated  _ hatred _ for Phasma.

He raised his weapon and fired at her without thinking, blocking her from taking another shot to end the life of the boy.  He hit her knee, heart hammering loudly in his chest.

Phasma roared in pain, buckling at her waist for a moment to inspect her wound.  She glared at FN-2187 when she saw the blood oozing from her body.  Her wild blue eyes narrowed into slits, teeth bared and clenched in anger.  

He knew he was doomed.  

_ If _ she could catch him.

He grabbed the hand of the boy beside him and took off running through the streets.  They didn’t stop for  _ anything _ , not even when stray blaster bolts nearly hit them before they could get to shelter.  They stuck close to buildings and tried to hide themselves in shadows to avoid the mayhem that surrounded them.  

They were out of the valley and into the surrounding mountains before either of them stopped to think of the repercussions of their actions.  

“What’s your name?” the boy from the village asked between gasping breaths when the two of them settled down into the darkness of the mountains.   

“I don’t have a name,” FN-2187 gasped back. “At the palace I went by FN-2187.”

“I’m going to call you Finn,” the boy responded with a smile.  

He grinned back, a warmth he’d never felt settling in his chest.  “Finn,” he repeated, fitting his mouth around the word that would now be his name.  

The other boy nodded his head.

“Nice to meet you Finn,” he responded. “I’m Poe.  Poe Dameron.”  

They fell into silence after that, both of them listening to the sounds of the woods around them and huddling together for warmth.  They knew without communicating that any attempt to make a fire would be too much of a risk.  No doubt the palace was still searching for them; the smoke would attract their attention.  

Phasma had ordered them to level that entire village back there.  Saving the life of one of the “dangerous insurgents” had never been part of the plan.  Finn knew he must have blindsided her with his betrayal.  And if there was anything he knew his commander hated, it was being blindsided by her subordinates.  

Eventually the call of sleep took them both as the woods grew quieter, the night sounds acting as a lullaby as they leaned into one another.  

The last thing Finn remembered before closing his eyes was the soft whimpering cries of Poe mourning the loss of his family.  If he could remember what it was like to have a family, he supposed he would have wept too.

*****

When he awoke, he was distinctly aware that he was alone.

Poe had vanished sometime in the night.  The forest and mountains that surrounded him were the only reminder of what happened the night before.  

Finn struggled to his feet, looking around, his brown eyes wide and alert.  He scanned the horizon for soldiers and danger.  No one appeared.

“Poe?” he asked, his voice a quiet, harsh whisper.  

No answer.

“Poe?” he said again, fear consuming his tone.  

The only answers were the sounds from the forest.  

He waited for  _ two days _ , not moving from that spot, praying Poe would return.  

He didn’t.

Finn was alone for the first time in his life.

He wandered the woods and the mountains, drinking and eating what he could until he found himself in the desert once more.  

There was nothing to be found amongst the sand.  No food, no water, and certainly no mercy.  

*****

When she found him, he was dying of thirst, face down in an endless sea of sand.  

At first he thought she was an angel, a deity of some sort like he read about in the texts he had found in the palace library. 

But she had her hand on her hip, and the corners of her lips turned downward in a scowl.  He didn’t think he’d ever seen anyone look so  _ human _ .  

It took him two weeks to earn enough of her trust for her to tell him that her name was Rey. 

Rey was very secretive, but she was also lonely.

She had been fending for herself on the streets for as long as she could remember.  The faces of her family were a distant memory now.  She couldn’t even remember the feeling of her mother’s hands in her hair, pulling it back into three little buns.  

It was all gone now.  Just like they were.

Finn didn’t pry. He stayed silent and let her come around on her own.  Eventually the two of them forged a bond of trust that could never be broken.

He protected her as fiercely as she protected him.  She taught him, and he taught her.  

Together they were unstoppable.  

Finn and Rey.

The two of them survive.  


	2. Jakku Nights, Jakku Days

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The beginning of part one, seven years later, Rey and Finn meet a strange man who tasks them with finding a lamp.

_ Seven years later _

 

**Rey perched** **atop the dying machine.**  Its parts were still warm as she stood, elbow deep and pulling.  It wouldn’t be long before the other scavengers caught wind of her discovery.  But for now, Finn stood a few feet away, watching the desert for any intruders.

“There’s someone coming,” he said as she finally pulled free the heart of the great mechanical beast beneath her.

“How long?” she asked, grabbing and yanking wires with seemingly wild abandon.  But Finn knew better.

Rey understood machines on a level no one else he had ever met could reach, and he had spent the last seven years of his life in Jakku, where the street rats and scavengers made it their business to take apart and destroy machines with precision.  Rey was the best at her craft. She had honed her skills over the years she had been left alone there.  Which, from as far as he could tell, had been nearly her whole life.

He had seen the marks on the walls of their home, had seen how she had dutifully marked every day as the sun came and went over the horizon.  There were too many marks for him to count even when he had joined her seven years ago.

“Five minutes,” he told her. “Eight if we’re lucky.”

“Should be enough,” she said with a grunt, pulling free another part coated in machine oil and depositing it in her bag.

They tried to avoid fighting with the other scavengers in Jakku.  Any small amount of action on their part might give Finn away as a deserter of the Royal Army. 

Rey already knew his story. She had known almost immediately when she laid eyes on him all those years ago.  She also knew she would get an obscene amount of money and praise for turning him in, but she never tried.  Not even when Finn had been nothing more than another mouth to feed.  He had no training or understanding of machines like Rey did.  She was the brains behind everything, and Finn was just there to be her eyes - and her best friend.

Even now, his training was so ingrained in him that he found himself falling into it easily when threatened.  However, he let Rey handle any physical disagreements.  Her untrained scrappy way of fighting made more sense for the streets of Jakku.  She held the attention with her violent bursts and attacked,  and he stayed unnoticed in the background.  He had only ever had to step in twice in seven years.  For that he was grateful.  

“Four minutes,” he said, turning from the desert to eye her as she pulled free another handful of wires.

“Almost done,” she said, her voice strained and distracted.  He turned his attention back to the clouds of dust and sand that surrounded the fast approach of other scavengers. 

Finn felt almost useless when he thought about his relationship with Rey.  He could fight, but he didn’t dare. He couldn’t scavenge, all he could do was stand guard.  Rey was an awful lookout, though; she got distracted easily, her mind wandering elsewhere. And while he often let his mind wander, he was trained to keep his senses engaged and active.  He supposed that alone made this a somewhat mutually beneficial relationship, particularly because Rey hadn’t yet clocked him over the head and returned him to the Palace Guard for his “decommissioning”.  

“They’re almost here, Rey, come on!” he called when he saw the outline of the vehicles.

“Just a second, Finn,” Rey shouted back.

“Teedo’s with them!” Finn yelled, annoyed.  Teedo was the only scavenger to come close to finding out his secret.  He was also the only one he had ever had to help Rey fight against.  Teedo fought dirty, using his men as a shield.  Rey couldn’t take on that many people at once, talented as she was.

“Okay, okay,” she said, jumping down from the machine.  Her bag jangled with the sound of their haul.  Finn sighed with relief.

Rey’s arms were coated in oil from her fingertips to her elbows, and even in the dark, Finn could see a few splotches of oil on her face and neck.

“You’re a mess,” he said with a laugh as they made their way quickly towards where they stashed their vehicles.

“As talented as ever,” Rey remarked. The scavengers arrived at the wrecked machine just as Rey and Finn’s vehicles roared to life. 

They sped off without a look back.  Their home wasn’t very far, but Finn knew Rey would want to clean the machine parts before the cleaning pools were overrun by the other scavengers in Jakku.  It was four hours to sunrise, so that didn’t leave them much time.

When they arrived at the pools, there was already a small crowd of people there.  Rey set herself up quickly, the parts steaming when they hit the water and drawing attention from the other scavengers around them.  Finn stood tall and menacing behind her, glowering at anyone who dared to look at them.

She was not through cleaning the first part when a man dressed in dark brown tattered robes approached them.  Finn eyed him suspiciously, as Rey still bent over the cleaning pool.

The man stopped directly across the pool from Rey and stared down at her, his face hidden in shadow beneath the hood of his robes.  Rey lifted her head to look at him and Finn shifted behind her, trying to get this man to  _ take the hint _ and move along. Finn breathed out harshly through his nose in order to get the man’s attention.  The man didn’t look away from Rey.

Rey leaned back, glancing at Finn over her shoulder.  He stared down at her, his expression annoyed as he shrugged one of his shoulders, arms still crossed over his chest.  Rey turned her attention back to the mysterious man.  

“Can I  _ help _ you?” Rey asked when the man continued to stare down at her for an awkward length of time.  

He reached up then, his hands gripping his hood and pulling it down, revealing his face.  He was a much older man with piercing blue eyes and a thick grey and brown beard.  He stared at Rey as if he was waiting for something to happen.  She stared back at him, confused and irritated.  

“What?” she asked when he continued to stare.  Finn could tell that she was beginning to feel uncomfortable.

“Are you going to  _ say _ something?” Rey asked, straightening up from the pool of water and wiping her hands on the sash around her waist.  

The man huffed, jaw clenching and unclenching.  He continued to stare at Rey as if he were waiting for her to do something.  Rey looked back at Finn, shaking her head.  What did this man even want?

Rey crouched back down by the pool, trying her best to ignore the troubling gaze of the man across from her.  She picked up one of the parts from the basin and began scrubbing it.  She hoped that if she looked busy, the man would get bored and move on.

He didn’t.

He stood there and watched her wash part after part after part and place it next to her to dry.  Rey’s discomfort level rose as more and more time passed with him standing there and staring down at her expectantly.  

He cleared his throat when she moved to pick up another part, continuing to ignore him.  She looked up at him, gripping the part in her hand and shaking her head.  

“ _ What _ ?” she snapped at him.  

“I’m Luke,” he said, as if that was supposed to mean something to her.  

“So?” she asked, turning her attention back to the last few of her parts still floating in the water.  

By now the sun had fully risen over the horizon, and the three of them began to feel the desert warmth, the sand capturing the heat of the sun greedily.  

“I need you to do something for me,” Luke responded.  Rey snorted and rolled her eyes at him.

“No,” Rey said back, shaking her head and muttering ‘that was easy’ under her breath.  

“I’m willing to pay,” Luke said.  Rey wrinkled her nose in disgust.  

“I don’t know who put you up to this, but I’m not that kind of girl,” she said hastily, suddenly feeling even more uncomfortable if that was possible.  

Luke held up his hands in protest, his neutral expression dissolving into one of shock.  

“Nothing like that,” he said vehemently, “I merely need you to retrieve something for me.”

“No,” Rey said again, once more refusing Luke straight out.  She wasn’t sure what he expected, but she and Finn didn’t do that sort of work for other people.  In Jakku, it was every scavenger for themselves.  This was something he should have known.

“You  _ will _ go to The Cave of Wonders, and you  _ will _ retrieve a golden lamp,” Luke tried, his eyes searching Rey’s face.

“ _ No _ ,” Rey repeated.  Another simple answer for this man who didn’t seem to understand that neither  _ she _ nor  _ Finn _ were going to do anything he wants.  

“Never was good at that,” Luke muttered, clenching and unclenching his fists.  Rey simply stared at him, her eyes narrowed in suspicion.  She opened her mouth to ask him what he meant by that, but she was interrupted by Finn’s hand on her shoulder.

“We should go,” Finn said.

“I still have more parts to clean,” Rey protested, motioning to the parts she still had left in the basin.  

“No, not now,” Finn explained, “We should go to the cave of wonders.”  

Rey turned over her shoulder to look at him, dumbfounded. Finn looked somewhat dazed, staring straight ahead at the man in front of them.  

Luke looked pleased with himself.  

“No,” Rey said again, still insistent on giving a negative answer.  She didn’t know what had come over Finn, but this stranger wasn’t going to get anything out of them.

“As I said before,” Luke continued, “I am willing to pay you.”

“Why can’t you do this yourself?” Rey asked.

Luke shook his head. “It has to be you.”

“Why?” Rey asked, shaking her head in confused irritation.  Luke looked at her for a long moment, his blue eyes intense and searching.  

“The belonging you seek is not behind you, it is ahead,” Luke responded with a shrug of his shoulders, as if it had been obvious the whole time.  Rey’s mouth clicked shut at his answer, and she frowned.  Someone else had said that to her a long time ago, she was certain of it.  The words sounded so familiar. 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest.  

Luke smiled sadly at her.  This whole conversation made Rey uneasy.  She was almost willing to agree to go to “The Cave of Wonders” simply to get him to go away.

“What would I have to do?”  Rey asked finally, another long and uncomfortable silence settling between the three of them.  

“There’s a lamp, a single golden lamp high in the cave,” he told her, somewhat cryptically, “That lamp is your key to moving forward.”

Rey’s heart pounded in her chest, her abdomen tensing.  

“And where do I find the cave?” she asked, feeling dazed and not at all like herself.  Her head felt light, as if it was filled with cotton.  It was almost as though a strange veil had settled over her.  

Luke reached his hand out, handing her a rolled up piece of paper.  Rey took it without hesitation and unrolled it gingerly.  It was a map.  She looked up from the paper, meeting Luke’s eyes one last time.  

“I’ll do it,” she said, finally.

“I know,” he said.  And then he was gone, leaving Rey blinking in confusion.       


	3. The Cave of Wonders

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rey and Finn venture into the cave and get much more than they bargained for. Also, a fight scene.

Rey pulled her hood up, shivering in the dark of the desert.  Without the sun, it seemed like there was no warmth left in the unforgiving sand.

She found the “Cave of Wonders” easily enough, if the bright light and panther-shaped cave was any indication.  She went there with a mission.  Finn was by her side as always.  He didn’t like the idea of her going into a situation like this at all.  It wasn’t like her to get caught up in someone else’s power struggle.  But here she was, seeking out a lamp in some sort of “sacred” cave.

Finn voiced his displeasure every chance he got, despite his earlier insistence that they should go, but eventually the cave got to him and he fell silent.  Around them were riches and treasure of which they had only dreamed.  Gold and precious gems were scattered everywhere.  Finn lost his attitude and became distracted by the treasures around them.

Rey still had a singular interest in her mission.

“Don’t touch anything,” she warned Finn, when she saw him staring at the treasure.  He nodded halfheartedly and she rolled her eyes.

The lamp she was looking for was high up, lost in the treasure that surrounded them.  She climbed over pile after pile of gold, trying her best to ignore the treasure and focus on the lamp, the only thing worth getting in this godforsaken cave.  She could hear her stomach growling at the thought of finally having enough to eat.  She was sure Finn felt much the same way.

The closer she got to the lamp, the farther away it seemed.  She knew it was the only thing worth having in this cave, despite the appearance of the treasure all around them.  This lamp, as Luke had told her, was the key to her future.  The key to what lay ahead for her.  

She would stop at nothing to acquire it.  She didn’t remember why she had been so opposed to completing this mission in the first place.  

She was so close to her prize when she noticed someone else in the cave with them.  

He moved like shadows, but she still saw him out of the corner of her eye.  He was male, well-built, hooded, and definitely moving towards the same object she desired.

“Finn,” she hissed in his direction.  She turned to him over her shoulder, his head already turned in the direction of the other intruder.  She should have known he would’ve already noticed.  The two of them continued their ascent, clawing and grappling at the mountains of gold and treasure in order to reach the lamp, high above the other artifacts.

Rey was an expert at this sort of thing,  climbing and scaling in order to get to an object she desired.  Most of the time that object was a large machine, something she could scavenge in order to survive.  She had mouths to feed, after all.

This sort of thing was right up her alley.  So it was a personal affront on her character when the hooded man started gaining on her.

He had noticed them by now, the two of them heading towards the same object.  His body was tense.

*****

The lamp dropped and clattered to the floor.  Rey screamed in frustration, letting herself fall from the heap of treasure and onto the floor.

The lamp lay on the floor between them.  Rey stood on one side and the mysterious hooded man on the other.

“Who are you?” she asked, her form rigid, muscles poised to attack.  Her hand reached for the staff she carried on her back.

The hooded stranger didn’t answer.  His face was shadowed, hands twitching at his sides as he stood opposite Rey.

“Who sent you?” she asked, pulling her staff from where it was held on her back.

Still no answer.

Instead, the man responded by unhooking something from his hip.  The object was short and cylindrical with two small vents jutting out on either side.  Rey watched the object warily; she had never seen something like this before.  

Behind her, Finn inhaled sharply, causing her to look over her shoulder for a brief moment, their eyes locking.  While she was distracted, a menacing humming noise filled the room, accompanied by an eerie red glow.  She turned her attention back to the man, staring in awe and confusion as a strange red light poured from the object, creating a sword.

“What are you doing?” Rey asked, holding her staff tighter in her hands.

“Rey,” Finn hissed behind her, sounding terrified. “We need to run!”

Rey ignored him, gaze glued to the menacing red saber humming in the stranger’s hand.  She held her staff a little higher, dropping her stance and making a run for the lamp.

“Rey!” Finn screamed, knowing he’d lost her.  There was no way she could win this fight; Finn knew exactly who this was.  It had been years since he had seen the prince whose army he had deserted.  The last time he had seen him, they had both been boys barely out of their youth.  The prince had been menacing even then, but now, he was something else entirely.

He stood tall, swathed in black.  His back was straight, stance rigid as Rey rushed toward him.  He made no move to back down or attack, but Rey continued to close the distance between them, getting closer to the lamp.

Finn continued to voice his protests in the background, calling for Rey to stop.  But it was useless, she had fallen for the bait.  Finn had seen this tactic before. In the early days of his training, the young prince would often goad his soldiers into impaling themselves on his sword.

The prince twisted his saber in his hand as she got closer, illuminating Rey’s face as she moved her staff upwards to strike.

Finn could only watch helplessly as his friend defended herself against the man in black. 

*****

He twirled his saber, bringing it upwards into an arc to strike, and Rey dropped to her knees, sliding along the stone floor of the cave holding her staff up to block the blow.  The lamp was so close, she could almost reach it.

His saber made contact with her staff, the heat from the blade almost startling. The metal of the staff held its own against it.  The stranger let out a soft gasp, almost inaudible, but Rey heard it and was confused by his surprise.

She bent beneath him, under the weight of his blow.  He pushed his saber more insistently against her staff, as if he was trying to saw through the metal.  It didn’t give.

He roared, frustrated by this turn of events.  She pushed back against him, forcing his saber upwards and away.  He brought it back down again at a different angle, trying to catch her off guard and strike her from the side.  She blocked him again, nearly losing her fingers in the process.

He wasn’t like anyone she’d ever fought before.  Where the people she fought in Jakku were scrappy and devious, he was strong and poised.  He had been formally trained to fight, possessing skills that she lacked.  It was likely she would lose this fight and leave here without the lamp, if she left here at all.

As her blood ran cold with that realization, she cast a panicked glance around the cave for her companion, but Finn was nowhere to be found. Had something happened to him?

Rey grunted in frustration, pushing back against the never ending onslaught of blows from the man’s saber.  She was struggling to hold him back, losing ground and moving further away from the lamp with every strike he landed.

She struggled back to her feet, only be sent back down to her knees from the weight he pushed into her staff.  She was going to die here, and all because of a stupid useless lamp.

But then he faltered; it simply took one wrong move and he sent her closer to the lamp, closer than she’d ever been.  It wouldn’t last long, so despite him holding his sword over her, she made a dive for the lamp.  He went down with her, disabling the saber as he fell.  They grappled for the lamp together, grabbing and pulling like two children fighting over their favorite toy.  

The lamp came alive in their grip, blue and red colored smoke spilling from the opening.  It burned against their skin, heating up to almost unbearable temperatures.  Neither of them let go.  It shook and trembled like it was alive. Rey had never felt such terror in her life.  She was sure it reflected on her face, lips puckered, eyes narrowed and sweat beading on her forehead.  She had to assume the hooded man was feeling the same.  She couldn’t see his face beneath his hood but she could hear his breathing; it sounded labored.

The clouds of smoke accumulated above them, red on one side, blue on the other.  It was almost as if they were forming something.  Still, neither of them let go, locked in some sort of death match over a glorified piece of scrap.

When the lamp stopped spewing smoke, it grew cold beneath her fingers.  She still held it, glaring at the man across from her.  His long fingers neatly folded over hers and trapped her hands beneath his own.  She had a feeling that he was somewhat smug about that.

“Let go,” he said, finally speaking his first words to her.  She was startled by the deep baritone of his voice.

“No,” she said, pulling on the lamp to add emphasis.

“And I thought we had a hostile relationship,” someone said from above them.

Rey jumped and yelped, startling the man across from her as well.  They both released the lamp and it clattered to the floor.  Rey looked up, catching a glimpse of two large men,  one bathed in an eerie red glow, the other bathed in blue.

“What…” she said, distracted for a moment by the presence over them.

The hooded man used this to his advantage, grabbing the lamp before she came back to her senses.  He had expected this; Snoke had warned him this might happen.  In magical lore, lamps often held the spirits of the deceased.  These spirits could be released by someone touching the outer surface of the lamp to bare flesh.  He had been warned to wear gloves, but his curiosity had gotten the better of him.

Rey turned back to him just in time to see him take off running back towards the mouth of the cave.

“Stop!” she called out after him, rushing to catch up.  He flung whatever he could in her way in order to slow her down.  She jumped over most of it with ease, more focused on catching him and getting the lamp than what she was leaving behind.

The apparitions from the lamp followed after them, drawn by the commotion and the power of their former home.  Rey heard them arguing from behind her, bickering about the past hundred years they’d been trapped.  She ignored them for the most part and focused on the task of taking down the man in front of her.  That is, until the ground began to tremble and shake beneath them.

They were both thrown to the ground for a moment, startled by the sudden shifting beneath their feet.  They clamored to get up, running now for a different reason.

“What did you  _ do _ ?” he yelled over his shoulder, narrowly avoiding falling debris from the top of the cave.

“Me?” Rey shouted back.  “What about you!?”  She ducked and rolled out of the way of falling treasure.

He ignored her, the ground cracking and falling away behind them as they ran.  Rey pushed herself to run faster, letting adrenaline and fear run her body and push her forward.

Then she remembered Finn.

The weight in her chest was instantaneous.  She skidded to a stop, steps faltering as she turned back and watched the cave fall apart.  The whole cave was being swallowed by molten lava, bubbling through cracks in the floor and eating everything it came in contact with.  There was nowhere left for Finn to be.

Rey watched in horror, scrambling to get away from the heat.  She stumbled over the uneven ground and began to sink.  She grappled for something, anything to hold on to, burning her hand on the heated rubble as she tried desperately to pull herself over the edge of the sinkhole and escape the cave.  It was to no avail.

Her mission was a spectacular failure, and she knew now she should have listened to Finn.  Every single one of his complaints had seemed so far-fetched and childish earlier.  But they didn’t now, as she dangled alone over a pit of molten rock, the floor of the cave giving out ever so slowly beneath her scorched fingertips. She would have given anything to go back and listen to him.

Her chest ached at the thought of him dying alone and scared in this cave.

“I won’t let this happen again,” the blue figure shouted above her, reaching out his hand to save her from the pit.  She didn’t reach back, she couldn’t, but it didn’t matter. His hand went right through her forearm.  Rey yelped at the sensation, almost pulling her hand away as ice shot through her veins.

“Oh,” the being said, dumbfounded, as if he didn’t know exactly what was supposed to happen.  It didn’t matter now, she was done for.  All that was left was for her to let go.

The rocky surface of the cave turned to pebbles beneath her fingertips.  With every second that went by, more and more of it broke away, filling her hands with heated rock.

“Thanks for nothing,” she said to the spectre that hovered over her, a dumb look on his face.  He opened his mouth to say something, but Rey was so lost in the sensation of falling she didn’t hear.  Luckily she blacked out before she hit the surface of the lava.  She couldn’t imagine her body melting into a mess of flesh and ooze would feel very pleasant.

*****

“Rey!” Finn shouted in the darkness, her body colliding with something metal, smooth, and most importantly cool beneath her heat-scorched skin.

“Finn,” she said.  Her voice felt raw, throat dry as if she had been screaming.

She smiled to herself.  So far death seemed nice.

“I’m sorry for getting us killed,” she said.

“What the kriff are you talking about?” Finn asked, voice shrill.

Rey’s eyes snapped open, the Cave of Wonders still collapsing around them.

“What?” she asked, looking around and drawing her body up into a ball.

“Careful!” Finn shouted over the noise of the cave. “You could throw us off balance!”

Rey stared down at the smooth flat metal beneath her.  It was like nothing she’d ever seen before, some sort of flat flying object.

“What is this thing?” Rey asked, gaze locking with Finn’s.

“It’s a ship,” someone else said from behind her. “My ship.”

“Kriff!” Rey shouted in surprise, jerking slightly and earning another warning from Finn.

“Who is  _ that _ ?” Rey asked, turning over her shoulder to see another man seated at a digital control panel, accelerating through the collapsing cave around them. 

She didn’t even give Finn a chance to answer, looking back down at the “ship”.

“Not much of a ship though, is it?”

“Hey!” the pilot shouted from behind her, sounding offended, “Is she always this rude?” Finn glared at her.

“We’re trying to save your life here, Rey,” Finn said through clenched teeth.  Rey made to respond but the pilot banked left to avoid a chunk of falling rock.  Rey and Finn both yelped in surprise and reached for each other.

“Are you trying to get us killed?” Rey hissed when he banked again, nearly throwing them from the strange machine.

“Nope,” the man said, “Quite the contrary, actually.”

Rey turned her head again to glare at the man over her shoulder as she held onto Finn for dear life.  She saw the mouth of the cave approaching quickly.  The rock formations that once dangled like canine teeth had shattered and fallen and were being devoured by the unforgiving heat beneath them,  a heat that she could somehow no longer feel.

“Almost there,” Finn said against the shell of her ear as they both watched the entrance approach, hearts thumping wildly in their chest.

“Looks like the entrance might collapse,” the pilot said nonchalantly.  

“What?” Rey and Finn said in unison.

“Better hold on to something, this could get a little bumpy.”  A  _ little _ bumpy was an understatement.  Rocks and debris fell from all around them, pelting the makeshift machine and bouncing off some sort of invisible shield.  The whole thing was surreal.  Rey felt like any moment she was going to wake up from some strange dream.

“Not gonna make it through the mouth,” the pilot said regretfully.  

Rey sighed, accepting defeat for the second time that day.  She was ready to confess her shortcomings to Finn, when the pilot finally finished his sentence.  “But we will make it through that eye.  It’s gonna be a little tight, so watch your head!” He banked the machine slightly to the right to fit through the space.  Both Rey and Finn ducked, closing their eyes and hoping they were going to make it out in one piece.

The machine roared and scraped against the rock in protest.  Rey closed her eyes tighter, willing the noise to fade away.  

From the eye of the cave, all three of them and the machine pitched forward.  The heated air trailed on behind them and sent them flying into the sand.

“Oh hell,” Finn said, sputtering and spitting sand from his mouth, “I hate sand!”

Rey didn’t care.  The grainy feeling of the sand in her mouth was a comfort.  A gift.  She was alive.  She made it out of that death trap with her life.

She rolled herself over, taking deep breaths, ignoring the need to cough the sand out of her lungs and concentrating on calming her erratic heart rate. She did the only thing she could think to do next: she laughed.  She laughed until her sides ached and her throat was raw, until her chest was tight and heaving, and there were tears pouring down her cheeks.

“Rey?” Finn asked when her laughter had died down to soft chuckles.

“I never want to do anything like that ever again,” she said, tilting her head back to where Finn sat in the sand, staring at her with a worried expression on his face.

“You were right all along. It was a spectacular failure.”

Finn laughed then too, short and barking.

“This is why I tell you that you should always listen to me,” he responded.  He knew even now that she wouldn’t,  but he accepted her olive branch nonetheless.  Besides, he was going to need her to be in a good mood before he introduced her to the new member of their group.

Finn and Rey smiled at each other then, and Finn opened his mouth to introduce their impromptu pilot.  But before he could, he was interrupted by someone else.

“I hate to interrupt,” the strange blue spectre that followed them from the cave began, hovering over where Finn and Rey were lodged in the sand.

Rey sighed, exasperated.

“What?” she asked, her tone indicating impatience and annoyance.  She thought they had lost whoever this guy was in the cave.

“You freed me,” the man said, “and for that I am in your debt.”

Rey watched him warily.

“Trust me when I say it was an accident.” She stood up from the sand, brushing herself off.  Despite it being an act of futility, the motion made her feel better.

“I don’t believe in accidents,” the man said, a sly grin spreading across his face.

Rey wrinkled her nose and frowned, not sure how to respond to this strange glowing creature.  He beat her to punch by way of explanation.

“You see,” he began, “there is a very specific lore that surrounds an entity trapped in a lamp, specific criteria that must be met in  — ”

“Um, Rey,” Finn said, clearing his throat and cutting off the strange man from the lamp.  Rey turned to face him, her face cast in the blue glow of their new friend.  The man grumbled something unintelligible but didn’t interrupt Finn, choosing instead to be polite.

“Anyways,” Finn said, motioning to the pilot who was now working to pull his strange machine out of the sand. “This is Poe.”

Rey pursed her lips and stared at Finn with an amused look on her face.

“And let me guess,” she said, smirking, “you wanna know if you can keep him.”

“He did save our lives, Rey,” Finn said, flashing her a pleading look.  Rey stared at the two of them in silence for a long time, both of them making innocent eyes at her and awaiting her final verdict.  She sighed and shrugged her shoulders.

“Alright,” she conceded.  Finn and Poe exchanged award-winning smiles at that.  Rey rolled her eyes.

“But only if you make yourself useful,” Rey responded, pointing her finger at Poe to drive her point home, “no freeloading, you hear me?”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Poe responded with a grin.

“What were you doing out here in this cave anyways?” Rey asked.  From what the strange man who had sent them there had said, she assumed it was considered dangerous.  It was a little suspicious that this man would have wandered in there with no purpose.

Poe’s smile faltered.

“I was looking for a friend,” he said sadly, staring pointedly at Finn. “And from what I can see, I guess they don’t...they didn’t make it.”

The three of them turned back to the cave, watching it collapse in the sand, swallowed by molten rock.

“Oh,” Rey said, her voice small.

“Oh,” Finn repeated.

They were lucky that Finn had found Poe when he did.  The hooded man that had left her to die in there had somehow managed to sabotage both the cave and their vehicles in order to slow them down.  For now, their only transport would be Poe’s resilient “ship”,  until Rey could find the parts to fix their own speeders.

“Scoundrel,” Rey growled under her breath, wiping the machine oil off of her hands and onto her pants before she pinched the bridge of her nose in annoyance.  Her fingers still reeked of metal and machine oil so badly it made her eyes water.  Still, she ran her hands over her face and through her hair in an attempt to calm herself down enough to think.

“It shouldn’t take long for us to find replacement parts.  Speeder parts don’t go for many portions these days,” Rey continued, almost regretfully as Finn and Poe worked on freeing Poe’s ship from the unforgiving sands of Jakku.  It was a shame speeder parts were all but useless these days, considering they were so easy to find.

*****

Flying over the sand in the open, with no eye protection obstructing their view, was like experiencing a whole new world.  Rey felt untouchable.

The biting cold of the desert, the unforgiving sand and wind were distant memories.  It was as if they sliced through it, protected by the invisible barrier she had witnessed inside the Cave of Wonders.  It was amazing.

“That weird glowing guy is still following us, Rey,” Finn said.  Rey sighed, but she wasn’t surprised in the least.  As much as Rey wanted for him to just disappear, she was somewhat curious about what he had to say.  He never did get to finish his story from earlier.  He’d been suspiciously silent ever since.

“Let him,” Rey said, turning back to stare at the man. 

“I’m curious about what he wants,” she continued, turning to see Finn frowning at her, “And besides, he did try to save me from dying before you and Poe happened to drop by.  He failed of course, but it didn’t make what he did any less relevant.”

Finn sighed and nodded, saying, “This is the weirdest day we’ve ever had.” Rey laughed, tilting her head back and smiling up at the stars.

“I don’t know, Finn.  I’d say our weirdest day was when that toothless old woman tried to take you home with her.”  Finn groaned and covered his face in embarrassment.

“Don’t remind me, Rey!”


	4. Street Urchins

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Obi-Wan introduces himself, Rey discovers what she really is. Poe and Finn become closer.

Poe took them back home.

Most of the metal surfaces inside of their tiny home were littered with machine parts.  Some of them were worth something and some of them weren’t.  If Poe had any issue with the clutter, he said nothing.

The spectre that followed them from the Cave of Wonders hovered in the doorway, taking in the small hovel they called home with some uncertainty.  Rey was too exhausted to care much about his expression.  

“I’m Rey,” she told him finally, sitting on the edge of the small metal alcove where she made her bed.  Finn and Poe had already headed toward the other side of the machine to settle down and sleep off the day.  Rey wanted nothing more than to do the same.

“I know,” the spectre said with a nod and a slight smile. “I’m Obi-Wan.”  

“What are you?”  Rey asked, her curiosity getting the better of her after all this time of watching him.

He paused for a long moment, not looking at her.  Several expressions passed over his face.  He looked mostly conflicted, overwhelmed by her question.  

Rey’s eyelids drooped closed, her body hunched over her makeshift bed by the time he responded.  

“I’m a genie,” he responded finally, choosing his answer carefully.  Rey yawned and straightened up when she heard him speaking.

“A genie?” she asked, her voice sounding far away.  

“Yes,” he told her, his voice soft when he realized she was falling asleep.

Rey’s eyes fluttered closed and Obi-Wan watched her, a smile on his face despite himself.  

“What’s a genie?” she asked, her words slurred together as she lay down on the hard metal of her bed, pulling a scrap of worn fabric over her to act as a blanket.  

Obi-Wan didn’t respond; Rey was too far gone to understand him.  She was asleep the instant her head touched the cool metal beneath her.

*****

It was midday before any of them wake up.  Obi-Wan didn’t need to sleep; he’d been asleep for too long inside of that lamp.  Now he needed to figure out why he was released.  Of course, he knew the answer, but it didn’t seem feasible.  

He stared at the girl who freed him from the lamp.  He was drawn to her, could feel the power dormant inside of her.  She was powerful, much more powerful than she knew.  He knew what being drawn to her would mean, but it wasn’t something he was willing to admit.   

He’d made so many mistakes during his life, and even in death he had to bear witness to what his choices had wrought.  Now, this poor girl, so young and lost in the world, was forced to pay for a war he was part of.  

Even though they’d won, eventually it was as if they had lost.  When he had been locked away in that lamp with Anakin, he had thought the world was in a better place.  The Skywalkers held Jakku and its provinces, creating a land of prosperity even in the wake of the great machines dying off in the war.  

When he woke, he had expected the machines to have made a return.  He expected Jakku to have prospered, but when he saw how Rey lived, he knew their effort to provide had failed.  Leia was no longer on the throne, her entire lineage erased and replaced.  By what, he didn’t yet know, but it had to be a monster to let their subjects live in such blatant poverty.

Rey jolted awake under his gaze, jerking up into a sitting position.  She glanced around the room with eyes wide, fists clenching at the edge of her tattered blanket.  Her gaze settled on him.

Her eyes were startled at first, staring at him as though she couldn’t quite remember where he’d come from.  Then, a soft knowing smile settled over her lips, and he knew she remembered.  

“Obi-Wan,” she said.

“Rey,” he responded in kind.

From the other side of their home, Finn and Poe stirred awake at the sound of their voices.  Rey still had so many questions.

“What is a genie?” she asked, her question from last night still left unanswered.  

“Hard to explain,” Obi-Wan began, looking off to the side, lips pursed as he thought over his answer.  Eventually, he decided on the easier route.  Rey didn’t need to know everything about genies, she simply needed to know some basics.  

“Essentially genies are those who were prone to magic in life who left behind a legacy, a progeny if you will. They come back to teach and train future generations prone to magic.”

Rey was silent while she listened to him speak.  Her forehead wrinkled with confusion every time he mentioned magic.  At this point, Obi-Wan was almost certain she’d never met anyone prone to magic in her life.  It would make sense, considering her own abilities lay dormant, only used in times of great stress and need.  

“Then why are you with me?” Rey asked when he had finished speaking.  He sighed and nodded his head in understanding.  She had no knowledge of her abilities, exactly as he had feared.  

Obi-Wan stared at her pointedly, willing her to work it out for herself without him having to spell it out for her.  She looked uncomfortable under his gaze and said nothing, still awaiting his answer.

“You’re strong, Rey,” he told her finally. His words hung heavy in the air between them. “Stronger than you know, but untrained in the arts of your ability.”

“I don’t have any _ability_ ,” she protested at once, unable to meet his gaze.  Obi-Wan breathed in deep through his nose, his patience waning.

“You do,” he told her. “Without training it has been allowed to lie dormant for far too long.  You haven’t had a teacher, Rey.  You need a teacher.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Rey protested again, a sense of terror settling over her.  Obi-Wan felt it at once, choosing his next words carefully.  

“You’re important, Rey,” he continued. “More important than you know.  You have a rare ability, and I have the means to teach you how to use that ability if you will allow it.  I’ve felt it, the power you have within you, and ignoring it would be a mistake.  You could be so much stronger.”

“I’m already strong,” Rey said, her voice small and uncertain.  Obi-Wan stared at her sadly.

“You could be so much stronger than you know, Rey,” he told her, the promise hanging between them.  She didn’t look at him and instead looked back to where Finn and Poe were watching in silence.  The two men were wrapped up in one another, still huddled under Finn’s blanket.  

Rey met Finn’s eyes in a silent conversation.  Both of them watched the other, their eyes expressive, their mouths unmoving.  Obi-Wan knew Rey was asking his silent permission.

“Do it, Rey,” Finn said aloud for the benefit of everyone else around them. “I always knew you were destined for something greater.  This is it.”

Rey turned back to Obi-Wan, a hesitant smile on her lips.  

“What can you teach me?” she asked him.

“Everything,” he responded in an instant.

*****

It didn’t take much time for Obi-Wan and Rey to begin their training.  It had been a long time since Obi-Wan had taken on someone as his student, his last being the son of his greatest failure.  

Rey was hesitant, but also eager to learn.  She took to his instruction as if she had known of her gift her whole life.  For most of his teachings, at least.  She was also reckless and quick to anger.  Emotions were dangerous with her abilities, but no matter how often he told her this, Rey was hard-headed.

While emotions posed a threat to magic, they also strengthened it.  However, that kind of strength came at a great price: a loss of control.  

Obi-Wan could see it in her, her ability to be strong, so much stronger than anyone he had known, but he also saw an endless well of anger.  Rey was intense, rough around the edges, and unable to control her emotional outbursts.  

Anger was the worst offender.  Her frustration at not being able to do something on the first try often ate at her, and he would find her fuming, face red and body trembling.  He had to remind her again and again to find her center of control.  

He would not lose another student to this.  

“Rey,” he said, his voice low in warning when he saw the flush in her cheeks.  They had been working for weeks on her control, on pushing past her anger and frustration and not giving in.  

Rey still hadn’t reached a point where she didn’t struggle.  Nearby, Finn and Poe watched them, perched on top of the hollowed out machine that they called home.  The two men had taken an interest in Rey’s training when they weren’t working on other tasks Rey had to delegate in order to understand her abilities.  

Rey was a spectacular empath, the strongest Obi-Wan had ever seen in his long life.  He himself had been gifted in that area, but her level of understanding surpassed his.  It also made her dangerous if her control slipped.  

“Rey,” he said again, trying to remain calm when he felt her anger bubbling up around him.  He could see it in waves of color, felt the heat of it in the air between them.  She was slipping, losing her control and if he didn’t calm her, the result could be catastrophic.

“Stop, Rey,” he told her, her frustration becoming apparent even to the two men who sat watching in the distance.  The two of them shifted uncomfortably, and Obi-Wan could see fear and distress rising from them in waves.  

Their discomfort only served to push Rey further, her control breaking away, chipping off in bits and pieces.  

He watched it shatter, the air around them heating, and sand and various mechanical parts that were littered around them flew haphazardly into the air.  Finn and Poe flung themselves to the ground to avoid being slaughtered by flying machinery and sheets of sharp metal.  Obi-Wan stood before her, waiting for her to calm down and shielding the two men from flying metal.

Rey  panted as she calmed down, overheated scraps of metal dropping from the air around them.   She looked at Obi-Wan, eyes wide with terror.  He stared back at her, his expression of disappointment telling her everything she needed to know.

She hadn’t heeded his warnings, and she had put everyone around them in danger.  She could have killed Finn and Poe both in an instant.  

“That is why you need to learn control,” he told her, with a glance over her shoulder to see Finn and Poe watching her with wide eyes.  Where there had been awe, now there was also fear.  

Rey didn’t have to turn around to know what she had instilled in them.  

*****

Even after weeks of training and control and meditation, Rey still wasn’t certain any of the training was working.  Obi-Wan seemed calmer, more proud of the steps she was taking to work on herself.  However, Rey’s knowledge of her power also came with great fear.  

She had never known this about herself.  It wasn’t something she ever thought was real.  She had heard stories - old tales from long ago during the great war that described people like this.  People that had developed powers, powers that could not be explained.  

She had never dreamed she would be amongst them.  

It was surreal to think that, to believe that an ordinary scavenger from the streets of Jakku possessed such a strange and terrible ability inside of herself all this time.  

She never voiced her distress or discomfort about this discovery, but somehow she understood that Obi-Wan knew.  

She supposed he knew the same way she knew things - from a feeling, a scent, body language, or something much more grandiose.  

The more he taught her, the more she felt as though she had control over herself.  She still couldn’t accomplish everything he wanted her to, but she tried.  She wasn’t the best at offensive use of her ability. As hard as she tried to push and pull and call objects to her, it was lost on her.  

Her ability was somehow meant to be less tangible, less noticeable, she supposed.  Though Obi-Wan commended her for her offensive abilities, she often felt that she didn’t rise up to his expectations.  

This was another thing she never vocalized, but knew he understood.  He praised her incessantly as a result, trying desperately to get her to have faith in that portion of her abilities as well.  

Still, she didn’t.  

*****

Finn and Poe had taken on scavenging and providing while she learned.  At first her training had been less intensive, but Obi-Wan demanded more and more of her until it was impossible for her to do anything but train.  If Finn and Poe had any issue with her lack of aid on scavenging missions, they never voiced it.  Deep down Rey knew they were both thankful she was trying to control what had nearly cost them so much.  

Her loss of control over herself and her emotions early on had terrified them.  For a week afterward they had given her a wide berth.  Now at least, they laughed easier and spent more time with her when they found themselves with free time.  

Rey spent most of her time worried and fretting over what she had done even after Finn and Poe had recovered from their initial shock.  In that short time, the two men had grown closer.  Their missions away from home without her had pushed them to bond, or so Rey assumed.  

Finn looked away when Poe mentioned his family.  And for the first time, Rey could see that her ‘feelings’ and understanding of other people left swirls of color and heat in the air.  She knew then that one of Finn’s great disappointments was not being able to save all of them that day.  

Just like she also knew that Poe was still in awe of him, this young man from his youth who had rescued him as a stranger,  despite his affiliation with the palace, despite who his parents were.  Finn had rescued Poe without thought, at risk of his own safety. 

The feelings between them were so strong it was almost suffocating.  Rey never told them about any of this. She could still remember the fear she felt from them on the day she had lost control. She never brought up her ability with them after that, and they never stuck around to watch her train.  

It was better that way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> End of Part One. Part Two resumes Saturday 9/17.


	5. The Legend of the Lamp

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So apparently, the lamp is important. And Finn has been keeping a secret.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beginning of Part Two.

_ Two months later _

**They were in the midst of training** , when Rey noticed something change in Obi-Wan’s expression.  He seemed pained, hands clenching to fists at his side.  

“Obi-Wan!” Rey shouted when he hunched over at the waist, a strange groan escaping his lips.  She rushed to his side to help him up, but ended up awkwardly standing there, forehead creased in panic, remembering she couldn't actually touch him.

“What’s happening?” she asked when he fell to his knees.  She should have known something was wrong when the strange blue glow that surrounded him had slowly started to fade away over the past few months.  The blue glow had nearly disappeared now, flickering out against the sand.

“I was afraid of this,”  Obi-Wan said, as cryptic as ever.  Rey would have rolled her eyes if she wasn’t so concerned.

“What?” Rey asked, trying to get him to go on.  

“I should have known when I couldn’t save you that day in the Cave of Wonders that this would happen.”

If he was trying to drive Rey up a wall, he was succeeding.  She didn’t understand what it was with this man and his never getting to the point.  She wondered if the hooded man who had stolen the lamp and left her to die was having this many issues with his genie.  She hoped so.

“Known  _ what _ was happening?” Rey asked, masking the impatience in her tone with concern, lest Obi-Wan chastise her.

“The lamp,” Obi-Wan said, as if she should have already known this to be the answer.  Rey stared at him in silence, watching his face contort in pain.

“Without it,” he said, pausing again to swallow, and at this point Rey thought he was probably just being dramatic, “without it, I’ll die.”

“Die?” Rey asked, her upper lip beginning to sweat.  Obi-Wan was  _ dying _ without that stupid hunk of gold the hooded man had stolen from them?  Perhaps he wasn’t simply being dramatic then.

“Who is dying?” Finn asked, he and Poe emerging from their makeshift home.

“Obi-Wan,” Rey responded, frowning and wringing her hands.

“What?” Finn asked, taking in the scene.

“Unless we can get the lamp back,” Obi-Wan explained.

Rey’s frown deepened, her forehead creasing in frustration.  

“But that’s impossible,” Rey said, “we don’t even know who took it in the first place!”  Obi-Wan nodded, looking almost defeated.

“That’s not entirely true,” Finn said, a bit sheepish.  Rey turned to look at him.

“What?” She asked.

“I know who took the lamp,” Finn responded, shifting uncomfortably beneath her gaze.

“Why didn’t you tell me this sooner?”  Rey asked, her tone light but still accusatory.  Of course, she knew why Finn had kept it from her.  Knowing herself, she probably would have ended up getting herself killed going after the guy.  She  _ really _ didn’t like to lose.

“You know why I didn’t tell you sooner, Rey,” Finn said, by way of explanation. “Can you really tell me that stupid thing mattered at all until now?”

It hadn’t mattered, Finn was right.  Going after that lamp would have just been a futile attempt to win back her pride.  Not to mention she would likely have gotten herself killed in the process.  What sort of scavenger had a sword made out of light?  She had never seen anything like that in her life.

“Who has it then, Finn?” Rey asked, choosing to ignore his question altogether.  She wasn’t sure how much time Obi-Wan had left, but she didn’t want to waste a second of it.

“If I tell you, Rey, you have to promise that you won’t go rushing into this.  We need a plan, a real, honest plan.  We won’t be able to win this by force alone.  We would be in way over  —”

Rey cut him off, holding up a hand and staring at him as if he had lost his mind.

“You’re scaring me, Finn,” Rey said, watching his face.  He was drenched in sweat, eyes darting back and forth nervously.  Even Poe looked nauseated and terrified next to him.  

“Promise me, Rey,” Finn said.

“You’re making it sound as if we would be going up against the Palace Guard,” Rey joked.  She didn’t want to promise she wouldn’t go running into something alone.  She needed to be able to protect the small family she had made.  Their safety was more important than her own life.

Finn didn’t respond.

“Finn?” Rey asked, her patience running thin.

He wouldn’t meet her gaze.  Poe looked uncomfortable next to him, as if he had picked up on something she hadn’t.  

“Okay,” Rey said, when the silence had become unbearable between them.  “I promise I won’t rush into anything, but you have to tell me who that guy was.  It can’t be that bad, can it?”  Rey laughed nervously. Finn was starting to make her feel uncomfortable too.

There were times in the past when she had to talk him out of going after someone.  It wasn’t like him to be this spooked about a single guy.  Though when he had started rambling earlier, he did say they would be outnumbered, and that they would need a plan in order to succeed.  

Finn still hadn’t responded, more sweat beading on his forehead as the four of them stood in silence.  The desert sand shifted and hissed around them.  Rey tried to put all of this together in her head.

For as long as she had known Finn, she had only known him to be afraid of two things.  The first thing was not being able to help her, or feeling useless.  The second was anything that had to do with the palace or the royal guards.  She didn’t know which of his fears this addressed, but there had never been an instance where Finn hadn’t been able to help her.

“Finn,” she said again, her voice a tense whisper.  He rubbed the back of his neck, finally meeting her gaze.  He looked like he wanted to run.  

It was the same look she remembered being on his face seven years ago. 

“No,” Rey said, realizing what this meant.  There was no way they could save Obi-Wan now.  Going up against the royal army was suicide.  They were trained and ruthless killers .  She remembered what Finn had told her from his time there.  It had taken him years to be able to talk about it, but once he did Rey understood why.  

She remembered his face covered in sweat, his eyes far off and haunted by the memories.  She remembered the way he didn’t sound at all like the Finn she had grown to love in those first few years.  Even now, what happened to him in those training camps still haunted him, she could see it every time he heard the approach of other scavengers, or any time he had to rescue her from a fight.  He was broken because of them, and now she would be too.  

She turned back to Obi-Wan, watching him as he continued to kneel in the sand.  He was the first person other than Finn to ever sense that maybe there was something more to her.  She was the only connection he had to this strange ancient power that had been awoken in her in those days following the Cave of Wonders.  But now, she was defeated, finished before she would ever have the chance to try.  

“There’s nothing we can do,” she told him.  He watched her carefully, his expression blank.

“Going up against the royal army is suicide,” she continued. “If it’s one of them that has your lamp, we’ll never get it back.”

“It’s not one of them,” Finn said finally, turning Rey’s attention back to him.  

“Oh,” Rey said with a sigh of relief.  Maybe there would be hope for Obi-Wan after all.  

“It’s worse than any of them, it’s Kylo Ren,” Finn continued. “The Prince himself.”

Nope, Obi-Wan was completely and utterly cursed.

*****

If stealing from the Palace Guard was impossible, then stealing from the royal prince was in and of itself inconceivable.

In Jakku, Rey knew her odds.  She liked her odds, she understood who she was here.  Beyond Jakku, things got to be too complicated.  She was safe here in this desert, the same place she had lived all her life.  The place where her family had left her. Journeying outside of Jakku, outside of her home and going anywhere near the heavily guarded palace  was out of the question.  

So why were they suddenly entertaining this horrible idea?  

“Are you  _ insane _ ?” Finn asked, when Obi-Wan told them that getting close to Kylo Ren would be easier than they thought.  

“Kylo Ren is terrifying!” Finn continued, not letting Obi-Wan get a word in edgewise.  “I’ve seen him take down hordes of soldiers at one time!  And that was years ago!  When he was just beginning his training with the Palace Guard!  And you want the  _ three _ of us to somehow infiltrate his palace and steal a lamp that’s probably heavily guarded.  Oh, and did I mention he has a crazy dangerous sword made out of light!?” Finn was screaming now, his voice echoing off the walls of the AT-AT.  He was outraged by the fact that Obi-Wan somehow thought this was the easiest thing in the world.  

“No,” Obi-Wan said when Finn finally stopped to take a breath, “Not the three of you. Just Rey.”

Finn sputtered and looked at Poe for guidance.  The other young man looked just as lost and horrified at the idea.  

“What?” Poe asked, looking at Obi-Wan like he was crazy.  Which, to be fair, was the way he always looked at the man, but now he actually had a reason.  

“We can’t send her  _ alone _ ,” Poe said. “It would be suicide.” 

“Why not?” Obi-Wan asked, eyeing Rey where she sat on the metal floor.  She was being uncharacteristically silent for this conversation. “She’s pretty enough.”  

“What?” Finn and Poe both asked, flatly.  Rey raised her head and blinked, confused.

“I don’t follow,” she responded, not sure what her level of attractiveness had to do with them infiltrating the palace.

“Why go to war when you can use good old fashioned mind tricks to get what you want?” Obi-Wan asked with a wicked grin.  Rey raised an eyebrow and stared at the old man in disbelief.  

“You want me to trick the crowned prince into giving me a magic lamp,” she said, obviously opposed to the idea.  Obi-Wan nodded, amused.  

“How?” Finn asked.

“By pretending to be one of his suitors,” Obi-Wan said, as if the answer had been in front of them all along.  Finn and Rey exchanged looks, both of them looking in various states of alarm before they erupted into laughter.  

“ _ Me _ ?” Rey asked shrilly between bouts of uncontrollable laughter.  

Finn barely held it together, wiping tears from his eyes.  He couldn’t even form coherent sentences.  He buried his face in Poe’s shoulder, holding on to the other man in order to try and keep himself from falling on the floor.  Even Poe was laughing now, their mania contagious.  When he and Poe finally slid down the wall to the floor into a heap, Obi-Wan cleared his throat.  

“You want  _ me _ to pretend to be a-” Rey could barely hold in her giggle, “-a princess!”

“Stop, stop, it’s too much,” Finn whined, clutching his sides.

“Are you done?” Obi-Wan asked, not amused.  Rey’s self doubt was disconcerting.  

“Are you done suggesting that I pretend to be royalty?” Rey asked.  

“No, I believe this is the only way for us to retrieve my lamp.”

“And like  _ we _ said,” Rey responded, standing up from the floor and brushing herself off. “Look at me,” Rey continued, motioning to herself., “I’m perpetually covered in motor oil, my hair and clothes are nowhere —”

Obi-Wan snapped his fingers, successfully stunning Rey into silence, when several luxurious articles of clothing  seemingly appear out of midair.  Finn and Poe also straightened up at the sound of rustling fabric.  Rey looked at Obi-Wan, dumbstruck and filled with questions.

In the weeks she had known him after the cave, he had  _ never _ done something like that.

“Once upon a time, genies were said to grant wishes,” Obi-Wan said, before Rey could voice any of her concerns. 

“It’s all a myth of course,  _ but _ with the abilities I had in life, this sort of thing is easy now.  Though I can’t say I make a habit of making clothing appear out of midair.”  

“Are you sure showing off like that is wise?”  Finn asked, taking note of the pained expression on Obi-Wan’s face.  

“Not wise, no,” Obi-Wan responded, “but necessary.”

“Even so,” Rey said, her voice soft and small, “putting new clothes on someone didn’t make them royalty.”  

Obi-Wan nodded at her thoughtfully.

“In my time I was adjacent to royalty myself,” he said, “I know some of the old families from Coruscant.  If memory serves, some should still be in power, and no doubt they would have a daughter around your age.”

Rey frowned and shrugged, her eyes locked on the clothing and jewels Obi-Wan made appear.  A long, tense silence settled over the four of them.

“Can you do the same with food?” Rey asked, finally breaking the silence.  Obi-Wan chuckled and nodded his head.  

“Then I’ll do it,” Rey said with a tense smile.  Though she knew it wasn’t as if she had much of a choice.  


	6. Princess Reya

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rey visits the palace and meets the prince. Hux is very welcoming. Not.

Rey was unprepared.  Everything Obi-Wan told her, everything he trained her to say seemed so insignificant once she was faced with performing the task at hand.    She had been near the palace before, she had seen it from beyond the gates, but being on the other side of it, standing in the shadow of the huge marble pillars, she was not at all ready.  

Doing this alone, without servants or an entourage, made her feel exposed.  But Obi-Wan had informed her, fondly and with a sly smile, that this was a power play.  The royal family of Coruscant was filled with women who did things like this.  Rey tried to imagine what those women were really like.  The way Obi-Wan spoke of them made her curious.

She walked up the steps, hand brushing along the surface of the stream that ran beside the stairs.  When she reached the top of the staircase, she was amazed by the entrance to the palace.  The fountain that fed the water by the stairs filled the center of the parlor, and Rey caught a glimpse of her reflection in the water.  She had to stifle a gasp.  

Her lips were red, her face painted like porcelain, her hair pulled back and filled with delicate golden combs.  The gown she wore was pale gold and spun of silk, and around her throat she wore a necklace made of gold and rubies.  She looked nothing like herself.

The inside of the palace was beyond what Rey had ever imagined. All of Obi-Wan’s descriptions and warnings had not prepared her for the sheer magnificence of it.  The ceilings were impossibly high, the walls made from gold and ivory.  There were fountains and man-made streams everywhere.  Rey had never seen this much running water in her life.

“Princess Reya Naberrie, I presume,” a high-strung accented voice said.  Rey turned away from the beauty before her to address the man who had called her by her pseudonym. 

The name was chosen by Obi-Wan.  He said it meant something important, though he would not elaborate.  He only said that it was the name of a prominent family from the Mid Rim, a family he had known well once upon a time.  But now, like most of the other royal houses, they were corrupt enough to not rouse suspicion in the palace.

The man who addressed her stood tall, dressed in all black, hands clasped behind his back.  His hair was a fiery red, eyes deep blue and filled with cruel indifference.  Rey disliked him immediately. 

“Advisor Hux,” Rey responded to him in kind, curtsying to show respect as Obi-Wan had taught her.

“What a lovely accent,” he responded, feigning interest. “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised, you are from Coruscant after all.” 

Rey smiled softly at him, smoothing out the silk of her gown where it clung to her waist.

“Thank you, advisor,” she said, forcing a charming smile, despite how her skin crawled at his compliment. 

The advisor did not smile back.  Instead his lips curled upward into a sneer.

“No one from your family has been interested in Prince Ren before, why now?”  He asked.  His stance was so rigid that he looked uncomfortable.

“I’ve just recently come of age,” Rey lied easily, reciting the backstory Obi-Wan had fed her, “and your kingdom has been gaining more influence as of late, advisor.  It would be foolish of my family not to consider an alliance.”

Rey’s voice and tone sounded so foreign to her.  She was never one to sound so proper.  It didn’t have a place anywhere outside of the walls of the palace.  But she would dutifully play her part in this despite the amount of discomfort her new alias caused.

“I see,” Hux responded. “That is very wise.”  His blue eyes skimmed over her form, considering her for the first time since he entered the room.  Rey felt uncomfortable, but she held her own.  She kept her expression schooled and her hands clasped in front of her.

Hux would have never known that mere days before her face and lips had been scandalously unpainted, her skin coated in machine oil, and her hair filled with grains of desert sand.  

“Though it is curious that you would come alone, unaccompanied by guards or servants of any kind,” Hux continued.

“As is customary, sir,” Rey responded without missing a beat. “Unless you are informing me that your kingdom does not have enough servants and forces to accommodate me.”

“Not at all,” Hux responded, voice tense. “We will provide you with anything you desire in order to make your stay more comfortable, princess.”

Rey flashed him another smile.

“I thank you, advisor, your hospitality is much appreciated,” she began. Continuing coolly before she could stop herself, she added “Especially considering Prince Kylo Ren very nearly had to marry you in order to continue his family’s lineage.  How disastrous.”

Hux’s expression faltered, his jaw clicking shut.  She knew she had gotten to him.  If Obi-Wan had been there, he would have chastised her for being “too brash” and not behaving like the lady she needed to be in order for their plan to succeed.  But this man needed to be taken down a peg or two and Rey was going to be the one to do that.

“Ah,” Hux responded with a forced laugh, “you and Prince Ren should get along famously.”

Rey smiled again.

All this smiling was getting annoying; Rey had never realized  royalty had to smile so often.  Once this was over she hoped she would never find herself in a situation like this ever again.  Fake royalty or not, she couldn’t imagine not being able to speak her mind.  Nor could she imagine being engaged in the constant battles of words and wit.  In Jakku, Rey would have already pushed Hux down into the dirt and beat him unforgivingly with her staff.

“Though perhaps you’ll want to freshen up before you meet our dear prince.  I know the journey from Coruscant can be rather unforgiving,” he said, eyeing her again. “We wouldn’t want you looking so haggard for your first impression.”

Rey had to bite down on her tongue and pretend she was hiking up her dress to begin walking in order to prevent herself from ending Hux’s miserable existence right there.

“You took the words right out of my mouth,” Rey said, only a small hint of malice in her tone. “Lead the way, advisor.”

“Gladly, princess,” Hux responded, voice flat.

*****

“Prince Ren,” Hux said, entering into the prince’s personal quarters with Rey in tow.

She had to hold back an audible gasp when they entered.  The prince’s quarters were like something out of a dream.  Much like the entryway of the palace, Kylo’s quarters also featured a fountain and some sort of man-made running stream.  But there were also countless opaque curtains that hung from the ceiling and danced just above the floor.  It made his room look like it was filled with clouds.  Or at least what she thought was his entire room.  Beyond the clouds of curtains, Rey found herself in the largest chamber she had ever laid eyes on.  So large, in fact, she could do nothing but stare at it in disbelief.  It seemed endless and filled with wonders of which she had never dared to dream.

There was plentiful food and water and precious objects to fill the vast empty space.  Her stomach rumbled without her permission, earning her a disgusted glance from Advisor Hux.

Her rage built inside of her at the thought of this terrible man.  This was someone who had never starved.  Someone who’d had plenty his whole life.  He viewed the people outside the palace gates as nothing more than inconvenient, disgusting street rats. She didn’t know what she expected.  Respect, perhaps, but even that seemed like a pipe dream now.  

He hardly respected her as royalty.  If he knew the truth, he would undoubtedly have her executed for daring to step her disgusting street-rat feet into his palace.  The thought amused her more than it should have.

“Prince Ren,” Hux called again, “Princess Reya Naberrie from Coruscant has arrived to make your acquaintance, sire.”  Hux sounded as if he absolutely despised calling Kylo Ren anything that garnered respect.

“I told you, Hux,” the same deep baritone voice from the Cave of Wonders responded, filled with malice, “I don’t have time for suitors. I don’t  _ want _ them.”

Rey looked around the room, trying to locate from where he was speaking.  The space was so expansive, Rey couldn’t seem to pinpoint the direction.  

“As you say, sire, but she was rather insistent.” Hux’s tone was cool and controlled.  Every word he spoke to Kylo oozed hatred,  which made Rey both curious and irritated.  She didn’t come here for drama between the prince and his advisor; she came here for the treasure Kylo Ren had stolen from her and her new teacher.

“Then do your kriffing  _ job _ , and get rid of her, Hux,” he responded, parting the deep red curtains that lead to the balcony and revealing himself at last.

It took every muscle in Rey’s body to keep herself from reacting.  She wasn’t quite sure what she expected him to look like, considering he was a  _ prince _ after all.  And in every story she had overheard as a girl, princes were indeed handsome and well-built, but this wasn’t a fairy tale;  this was real life.   And yet,  here she stood, embarrassingly awestruck by the somewhat unconventional attractiveness of this rather  _ rude _ prince.

He stood tall when he saw her, much taller than Advisor Hux.  His emotive brown eyes narrowed, and his thick pink lips twisted into a sneer.

“This is incredibly inappropriate,” he said slowly, raking his large hand through his long black hair, and moving his gaze from her to Hux, “You  _ know _ this is inappropriate.”

Rey was confused by what Kylo was even talking about.

“She insisted, sire,” Hux said, failing to hide the smug grin that turned the corners of his lips.

“Insisted,” Kylo said, gaze returning to her.  She felt small, humiliated, and worst of all completely ignorant as to what was transpiring between the three of them.

“Princess, I don’t know how things are done on Coruscant,” Kylo said coolly, “but this is very unbecoming of a lady in Jakku.  Only concubines behave in this crude manner.  It would behoove you to respect our customs.” 

Rey swallowed hard, visibly uncomfortable for a moment before she forced herself to regain her composure.  She straightened, holding her head high.  Kylo watched her with curiosity.  Perhaps he had expected her to deflate under his admonishment.

“With all due respect, your majesty,” Rey began, her tone biting, “the ‘customary’ approach did not work out very well for any of your past suitors.  And I intend to win, appropriate or not.”

Kylo had the good sense to look impressed for a moment before he schooled his expression.

“Well,” he said, “I hate to be the bearer of unfortunate news, but I have been spoken for already by my advisor.”  He motioned to where Hux stood, looking proud of himself.

“I was informed of that,” she said, showing no signs of backing down. “How unfortunate and disastrous for your kingdom,” she continued, pausing for a moment to watch Hux’s smile fade. “Though fortunately someone like me found you before you had to wed the help.”

All she needed to do was get Kylo alone without Hux so she could search his quarters for the lamp.  Then she could leave the palace, and Kylo and Hux would never have to hear from her again.  But until then, she was stuck playing this stupid game of wits, something she hoped to never again have to take part in, ever. 

“Oh?” Kylo asked, her statement thankfully making an impact.  Rey gave a short nod in acknowledgment, smiling sardonically at him.  

Hux said nothing, but his scathing expression did not need any words.  Rey knew if he could, he would have killed her in that moment.  Secretly, she welcomed him to try.

*****

Finding the lamp was harder than Rey thought.  From her brief, inappropriate visit to Kylo Ren’s quarters, she could tell it wasn’t in there.  She supposed she could have missed it, distracted by the sheer size of his bedroom.  However, according to Obi-Wan, she would have felt a pull, a connection to it even if she couldn’t see it.  That was the magic of being someone like her, she could feel all things through her gift.

It felt strange now, knowing who she was, what she was.  She wondered how she had never known before, how she could have felt something so profound for her whole life and never realized it.

But now— now she felt it.  In all things, it felt new.  The way the sands of the desert sang, the way machines spoke to her as if they were human, the life forces of everyone she had ever met and been close to.  She understood.  Her whole life she had experienced this as “normal”, as “unremarkable”.  She assumed everyone felt this way, assumed they all had abilities, the same as her own.  After all, Finn had always been abnormally attentive, had always known so many things before her.  Perhaps a former soldier’s intuition was stronger than an untrained, unaware vessel of magic.

She shook the thoughts from her head, allowing the servant to lead her back to her own quarters after her meeting with Kylo.  The servant was silent and made no move to address her or look at her whatsoever.  She kept her head bowed, eyes cast down at the floor.  Rey had been instructed by Obi-Wan not to address the servants in public.  But it broke her heart to think that this poor young girl had to avoid the gaze of someone that by political standards was beneath her status, but masquerading as royalty.

Still, she obeyed his instruction.  Rey held her head high, eyes locked forward as if she was not at all impressed by the magnificence of the palace.  She feigned disinterest at the hallways paved in ivory and gold and refused to look at the poor servant girl in front of her.  She assumed without a doubt that Hux would be watching her every move.  

She had piqued the interest of Prince Kylo Ren.  The look on Hux’s face when Kylo invited her to dine with her that evening, despite her earlier offense, was priceless.  She knew if she wasn’t careful, Hux would have her murdered without a second thought, and her mission would go up in flames.  She wasn’t keen on getting herself killed by Kylo’s jealous advisor.  

Though from what Rey had gathered, their relationship was a curious one.  Kylo Ren and Hux seemed like they couldn’t stand one another, which was not a strong foundation for a marriage.  Perhaps it was different when dignitaries were concerned.  After all, she was here under the pretense of marrying Kylo, and she had no interest in him whatsoever.  She couldn’t imagine the women of the Coruscanti Royal Family would feel any different.


	7. A Whole New World

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dinners, Kylo's father?, a kiss, and Rey discovers the lamp. The end of Part Two.

**A week of dinners** , mind games, and constant changing of clothes, and Rey was still no closer to finding the lamp.  She imagined Finn, Poe, and Obi-Wan were worried sick about her by now, but she also figured they expected her to be at a bit of a disadvantage.  Thus far, all she had accomplished was gaining the attention of Kylo’s father and Supreme Advisor Snoke.  

Rey couldn’t say that their interest encouraged her. Tonight’s festivities would be yet another awkward dinner where no one ate but her and everyone spoke in riddles to everyone else.  The idea of it turned her stomach, but the food was delicious enough for her not to care.  Even when Hux glared at her across the table every single time she put something into her mouth.  

Though this dinner, she supposed, would be a little different.  Over the past week, she had been dining with just Kylo, Hux, and a woman named Phasma.  She was apparently the leader of the Palace Guard.  Rey wondered why Finn had never spoken of her. Tonight, there would be two more people at the table:  the sultan himself and his supreme advisor.  

The meeting was apparently a big deal.  According to her servant Samara, who had delivered the gown that Kylo expected her to wear to this dinner, this had never happened with any of Kylo’s other suitors.  Rey had gotten further with him than anyone else, with the exception of Hux.  

She didn’t honestly know what Kylo could see in her.  She was not particularly kind to him, and she was definitely not kind to Hux or Phasma.  Every chance she had, she was coy and aloof, and she blew him off whenever he tried to take her on walks through the palace gardens.  Though maybe that was the thing— Kylo wanted a challenge.  That was something she could definitely offer.  

The gown Kylo sent was easily the most gorgeous thing she had ever touched.  It was more elegant than any of the gowns and clothing Obi-Wan had sent with her.  She had once thought that those would be the best she would ever get.  

This gown was floor length and sleeveless, dyed the color of midnight with jewels sewn in to look like stars.  It was less conservative than the other gowns she had brought with her, but Rey loved it immediately.  Kylo had also provided silver jewel-encrusted combs for her hair, and a pair of impossibly soft full-length black satin gloves.

She knew this was simply a show of wealth and power on his part, but Rey couldn’t help the warmth and gratitude that bloomed in her chest.  She had never received such a gift.

Immediately she felt foolish at the turn her thoughts had taken.  Had she been in this palace so long that she was beginning to grow fond of  _ clothes _ ?  Rey had expected she would grow fond of the plentiful food, the plentiful water, but the clothing?  In her life outside of the palace, these gowns meant nothing.  She could feed herself or Finn, by selling these gowns.  She shouldn’t be impressed or sentimental about something so insignificant.  

“Princess,” one of her maids, Amara, said upon entering.  Rey looked up from admiring the gown.  

“Amara,” Rey said, addressing her by name.  The woman tensed, but made no move to correct her.  She cast her gaze to the ground, kneeling at the bottom of the four steps that led to where Rey stood next to her enormous plush bed.  

“Dinner will be soon, princess.  My sister and I are to prepare you.”  

Since Rey had been there, Amara and Samara had attended to her every whim.  They had prepared her for every day, every afternoon, and every evening.  Yet they still announced themselves like this.  

Amara entered first, as she was the elder, and asked Rey’s permission to invite Samara in.  Rey couldn’t think of anything more counterproductive.

“Honestly, Amara,” Rey said walking down the steps and urging her to stand, “I’ve grown to expect you. You and Samara don’t have to announce yourselves every few hours, not with me.  I would much rather you two arrive together and set to work without all of this nonsense.”  Amara looked chastised, but Rey placed a hand on her shoulder and lowered herself so that she could catch Amara’s gaze.  

“I trust you,” Rey said quietly, with a soft smile.  Amara nodded, eyes watering when she caught Rey’s gaze for a brief moment.  Then she left to retrieve her sister.  

*****

Seeing herself reflected in the mirror in her room after Samara and Amara left was a surreal experience.  Rey wondered how before tonight she thought she knew what it was like to be royalty.  

Now she was a princess.  Her hair was an elaborate confection of braids, held together with combs and tiny jewels that glittered like stars in her hair.  Her eyes were lined with black and painted dark to match her dress.  

_ And the dress _ .

It was as if it had been made for her.  The way it fit, the way it accentuated her waist and body.  She wondered if Kylo ordered this to be made specifically for her.  The thought made her feel strange, like her stomach was doing flips.  She ignored it, clenching her fists at her side and watching the fabric of her satin gloves stretch and bunch over her knuckles.  

She had just turned around to leave for dinner when there was a knock on her door, likely signaling the time.  Her guards often knocked to signal when she was needed somewhere.  The time seemed a little early for her to be needed so urgently, but from what she gathered from Amara and Samara’s excited chatter, everyone was a bit nervous for tonight.  

The guards knocked again, and Rey tried to move a bit faster, flustered.  

“One moment!” she called out.  Her gown may be beautiful, but it made walking quickly difficult.  Normally that suited her just fine, since, as Obi-Wan had told her, princesses glide, not rush.  And she hadn’t practiced her walking until her feet fumbled at being rushed by the Palace Guard.  

“Princess,” Kylo said with a smile, when she opened the door.  Rey nearly jumped in surprise.  Kylo had made no attempts to meet her at her quarters before.  Perhaps her charade was going further than she was comfortable.

“Prince Kylo,” Rey said, straightening, “are you aware that this is highly inappropriate?”

Kylo chuckled at that. “I thought I would try something different, since I haven’t been very lucky with you in the past.” He ran his hand through his hair, a nervous habit of his that she had picked up on.  

“May I come in?”

Rey stepped aside to allow him entry to her bedroom.  He had yet to compliment her on her appearance, but he could hardly take his eyes off her as he entered the room.  Rey felt hot under his gaze, for reasons she couldn’t quite explain.

“Is there something you need?” she asked him, shifting a little to show her discomfort at his intense stare.

“I have a gift for you,” he said, holding up a flat, shiny, black box.

Rey swallowed.

“I assure you that the dress is enough,” she told him, not wanting to accept anything else.

Kylo shook his head.

“The dress was a necessity,” he told her, continuing quickly when he saw her take insult at his words. “This evening has a dress code, and that dress was necessary.”

This did nothing to assuage her fears, of course.  Now she was even more paranoid.  An evening with an even stricter dress code than normal?  She had a feeling that there was something more at play here than her simply meeting Kylo’s father and Supreme Advisor Snoke.

“Oh,” she said, not knowing how else to respond and still remain dignified and demure.

“But this is a gift,” Kylo said, holding up the box, a slight flush spreading across his cheeks for a moment before he continued. “It belonged to my grandmother.”

Rey’s heart pounded wildly in her chest, panic rising.  She wanted to run.  This was something she had not expected when she came here.  Kylo was offering her something with value, and not just monetary value, something that meant something to him. Something he cared about - as a gift.

“Kylo, I —” she tried, holding up her hands to refuse him, but he brushed her off, opening the box to reveal a gorgeous silver necklace fashioned out of connecting silver squares.

“Oh,” Rey said for the second time that evening.  The necklace was so simple in its elegance that it surprised her.  

“May I?”  Kylo asked, placing the box down on a table and removing the necklace.  Rey wanted to say no, or at least part of her did, but the other part of her was already saying yes.

“Yes,” she responded, and her voice sounded so soft and feminine that she was not even sure she said it until she was turning around.  

He moved close behind her, placing the necklace over her head.  Rey watched as he lowered the silver squares until they met the skin of her collarbone.  His long fingers brushed against her throat for a moment as he clasped the necklace.  She shivered at the heat of his touch for a moment, unable to prevent her reaction even if she tried.  

She turned to face him, showing him the way the necklace shone against her throat.  He watched her for a long time, a blush settling across his cheeks, expression unreadable.

“Beautiful,” he said simply, reaching his hand up and tracing along the necklace where it swooped over her clavicle.  Rey could feel the heat of his hand on her skin and it made her feel like her stomach was in knots.  

Her breathing was quicker than expected and her lips parted with a soft popping noise.  Beneath his fingertips, her heart was pounding.  

Kylo watched her mouth, his own lips parting in reply.  She felt out of control of her body in a way she never had been before.  She had seen other girls in Jakku have moments like this, but never her.  She always thought this was something she wasn’t cut out for, and in this moment she had never felt more helpless.  

This was  _ not _ what she was here for.  She wasn’t going to let herself be distracted from her mission.  This wasn’t a love story; she was here to find the lamp and save Obi-Wan.  She didn’t have time to be caught up in this nonsense.

“I love it,” she said hastily, breaking the spell that had settled over them. “Thank you.”

Rey curtsied and turned around to head for the door.  Kylo followed close behind.  

“You’re welcome, princess,” he said.  She could hear the smile in his voice and it made her chest feel tight.  

“Will you allow me to accompany you to dinner in lieu of your normal guard?”  Kylo asked, when they both reached the door.

Rey’s heart raced uncomfortably and she wanted to say no.  But she would not refuse him.

“Of course,” she responded, smiling her cordial royal smile and taking his arm when he offered it to her.  She tried desperately to ignore the feeling that touching him like this conjured, but she didn’t do a very good job.

*****

The sultan was a robot.  An actual, gold-plated, robot, with a strange red arm.  No one was at all surprised by this. No one even addressed it, but Rey found it concerning. How was it possible for Kylo’s father to be a robot?  Rey could not stop staring at the sultan or Kylo.   

“A pleasure to make your acquaintance, princess,” the robot sultan said with a short bow.  Rey curtsied automatically in response, her eyes impossibly wide, her expression one of confusion.  

“My advisor will be joining us shortly,” the robot sultan continued. “We are both very excited to meet you.”  

“Likewise,” Rey said with a forced smile.  Her mouth was dry from shock, and her voice sounded strange to her ears.  

_ No one else was surprised that the sultan was a robot _ .  

However, that all began to make sense when Supreme Advisor Snoke finally joined them at the table.  His appearance nearly made Rey crawl out of her skin.   The man was old and decrepit with greying skin.  He didn’t look human at all, and his presence made Rey feel uncomfortable.  

“Princess Reya Naberrie,” Snoke said, his voice cool and impersonal, “a pleasure.”  

Snoke didn’t bow as the sultan had. Instead, he took Rey’s gloved hand and pressed a kiss to her knuckles.  Rey clenched her jaw and tried not to react.  His touch was disgusting, even against her gloved fingertips.  He made her feel like she was suffocating.  She was beginning to think this was why no one in this palace ate.  Who could stomach food when they had to see  _ that _ every day?  

“Supreme Advisor Snoke,” Rey responded, forcing her mouth to move, her jaw to unclench, “the pleasure is all mine.”  

She had never wished so hard for a meal to be over.  

“We have not received interest from the House of Naberrie prior to you,” Snoke said, eyeing her suspiciously. He spoke slowly and with intent. “It seems very curious that your family would show interest now.”   Rey felt almost unbearably uncomfortable, as if this man were trying to force an answer from her.  

“Surely Advisor Hux has already informed you of my family’s reasoning,” Rey responded with a tight smile, trying her best not to fidget under the man’s gaze.

“Yes,” Snoke said slowly, his eyes narrowing, “but I would like to hear it from you.”  

“I fail to see what that will accomplish,” Rey said, growing weary of these endless games.  

Snoke’s eyes narrowed into slits.  He concentrated hard on her for some reason.  She felt a pull, her lips almost working without her telling them to.  Then she knew.  She knew what this terrible beast of a man was trying to do to her.  Rey wanted to run, but she couldn't without the lamp.

She would not fail.  

“Tell me why you’re here,” Snoke said.  His voice was calm, almost hypnotic, and Rey found that she wanted to respond in truth.  And she did, but not at all the truth she was expecting.  

“I find myself with a romantic interest in Kylo,” Rey responded, an embarrassing flush on her cheeks.  Her voice sounded robotic, her eyes glazed over.  She didn’t use his title, and it made her sound so familiar with him that her stomach churned.  

“Princess?”  Kylo asked, his tone surprised.  He broke whatever spell Snoke has over her and she let out a breath.  Her forehead was beaded in sweat, her hands holding onto her dress like claws.  She came back to herself, panting.  

“I apologize,” Rey said, smoothing her gown where she had held it. “I did not use your title, my prince.”

Kylo stood with a shake of his head, offering her his hand.

“No matter,” he told her. “Come, we have much to discuss.”

Rey still had not eaten, but she would have given anything to get out of here in that moment.  Even face the embarrassment of discussing her future with Kylo.  A future that, despite these new and budding feelings she had for him, she did not want.

She stood up from the table and accepted his hand graciously, allowing herself to be led away.

The table was tense and silent after their departure.  Hux sat, hands pulling at the fabric of his napkin.  Phasma drummed her fingers on the table, her face twisted into a cruel sneer.  And Snoke stared after the two of them in annoyance.

“The girl is hiding something,” Snoke said when they were out of earshot. “I want her purpose discovered and I want her punished.”

“Yes, sir,” both Hux and Phasma responded automatically.  The robot sultan said nothing.

*****

“A romantic interest?” Kylo asked, a grin on his face.

Rey dropped her head and blushed down at the ground.  Her heart hammered uncomfortably in her chest.

Kylo offered her his arm, and to be polite, she took it.  She still couldn't meet his gaze. Instead she stared down at their feet as they make their way through the palace halls.  

“There’s nothing to be ashamed of, princess,” Kylo said, stopping and turning her to face him as they stood just beyond the doorway to the gardens. “Is that not why you’re here?  To get to know me better before our families unite?”  

Rey blushed down at her feet, refusing to meet Kylo’s gaze.  Kylo had other ideas, however.  He placed his fingers under her chin, tilting her head upwards to meet his gaze.

“There’s nothing to be ashamed of, Reya.”  He used her name without her title and it made her chest feel tight.  

“Call me Rey,” she said before she could talk herself out of it.  Kylo grinned down at her.  

“Rey,” he said delicately, moving his hand to cup her cheek.  The whole dynamic changed between them in an instant.  Kylo watched her in a strange way.

“Rey,” Kylo said again, bending slightly to move himself closer to her. “I would like to kiss you if you will allow it.”

Obi-Wan had done nothing to prepare her for this.  She supposed, based on Finn’s testimony, Obi-Wan thought she would never find herself in a situation like this.  Both Obi-Wan and Finn were wrong.

“Yes.”

A week was all it had taken to break her.  Normally she would have the good sense to feel embarrassed, but she couldn't think of anything beyond him moving towards her.  His hand still cupped her cheek, her own settling on his chest.  In the distance she could hear the running water of the garden fountain.  She couldn’t think of anywhere better to experience her first kiss.  

His lips found hers, her eyes fluttering closed.  She felt a weakness in her spine, warmth spreading from her chest outward.  Her hands rose to cradle the back of Kylo’s neck.  His own hands traveled over her back and settled at her waist to pull her closer to him.  She sighed against his mouth, moving to stand on her toes to be closer to him.  

Kylo pressed her to the wall closest to them, his body against hers.  Rey struggled to deepen the kiss, wanting more of him.  He obliged her, gathering the fabric of her gown and pushing it upwards until she could wrap her bare legs around his waist.  

She did this without question, wrapping herself around him and raking her nails along his back.  They kissed like that for a while, both of them acting like they were starved for affection.

When Kylo moved his hips against hers, Rey gasped and pulled away, the sensation too much.  They regarded each other for a moment, lips swollen, hair mussed, and cheeks tinted pink.  

The she pushed against his chest lightly, and he stepped back to free her from beneath him.  She felt embarrassed immediately, her cheeks burning red at the thought of what she had done.  

“Are you alright?” he asked in a whisper, his huge body still invading her space.  She nodded, smoothing her dress back down over her legs.  She had never behaved this way before, so wanton with desire that she lost sight of her objective.  This man was no good for her.  

Rey managed to compose herself.

“Yes,” she responded with an easy smile, swallowing down the guilt in her chest.

“Shall we continue our walk?” Kylo asked.  Rey looked up and around them then, taking in the gardens.  Like the rest of the palace, the gardens were grand and filled with riches.  The hedges around them formed some sort of maze and were draped with twinkling lights that made them appear to be the homes of fairies.  

There was no way Rey could say no to this.  Even with her slightly mussed hair and her wrinkled gown, she let her curiosity take over.  

“Yes,” she responded, taking his arm again and allowing him to lead her through the gardens.  Every corner they turned was filled with lush green hedges and colorful flowers.  Rey had no idea that the desert could look like this.  She didn’t know there could be this much green in the entire galaxy.  Now here she was, witnessing it for herself.  

“The gardens are my favorite place,” Kylo said next to her, his voice soft.  He seemed almost ashamed to be admitting something so personal.  

“They’re beautiful,” Rey responded immediately, squeezing his arm and smiling up at him.  Rey smiled so often it was contagious.  Before her, he couldn’t imagine smiling this much.  His father (the robot) and Snoke both agreed that smiling gave too much away, but with Rey it was easy.  

Her smiles weren’t forced or fake like the other dignitaries that had come to pursue him.  Rey meant it, and that was what made her joy so infectious - it was genuine.  

“Come on,” he said. “I want to show you something else.”  

Rey looked up at him again, tearing her eyes away from the deep red flowers they had stopped beside.  

“What else could you possibly show me?” she asked, her tone light and playful.

“You’ll see,” he responded, taking her hand in his and leading her farther into the garden maze.  Rey followed without protest.  

He lead her to a wooden door at the center of the maze that required a key he carried.  The door opened to reveal some sort of secret garden.  In the middle there was a pedestal made from fresh cut stone.  Rey nearly gasped when she saw the lamp prominently displayed on top of it.  

A week of her denying offers to see the gardens, and the lamp was here the whole time.  She could almost laugh at the irony.  

“What is this place?” she asked, playing the ever-surprised royal.   But from the looks of it, she knew exactly what this place was.  It was a shrine to his conquests.  There were crowns, swords, and various other baubles.  Rey felt disgusted that she could be swayed by this man.  He was a monster like Finn had said.  The same monster who had tried to end her life over a lamp in the Cave of Wonders.

“My personal gardens,” Kylo said, motioning to the things around them, “and objects I’ve collected over the years.”

Rey feigned interest in the objects, letting her fingers glide over the blade of an old iron sword.  Then she touched a delicate and simple wire and jewel crown, slowly moving closer to the garden’s centerpiece: Obi-Wan’s lamp.

If she could just grab it, she would be free of this prison.  She could pretend that everything that happened tonight was just a dream.  How could she have allowed herself to get so comfortable here that she had forgotten that he tried to kill her?  

“And this lamp?” she asked when she was close enough to touch it.  He was quiet for a moment, choosing his next words carefully.  Rey stood next to her prize, her fingers hovering just over it as she awaited his explanation.  Part of her was afraid to touch it, especially after what had happened last time.

“Something I acquired recently,” he said, moving to stand nearer to her. “You can touch it if you like,” he whispered. 

Rey hesitated, remembering what it was like when the metal burned against her palms in the cave, what it was like to have Kylo’s bare fingers folded over hers for the first time.

Kylo moved to stand behind her, so close she could feel his breath on the back of her neck.  Her heart  pounded so hard that her ribs ached.

Her gloved fingertips brushed against the lamp, and she almost sighed in relief when nothing happened.  Behind her, Kylo moved even closer, his arms circling her waist, burying his face in her neck.  Despite her shame and better judgement, Rey allowed this.  She told herself it was so she could sneak his key from his pocket, but that was a lie.  She did it because it felt good for someone, especially him, to hold her like that.  She did it because she  _ wanted _ him to touch her.

She thought that might make her a monster too.

*****

He walked her back to her bedroom, pressing a kiss to her hand to say goodnight before he left her there.  She smiled sadly at him, watching him go as she bade him goodnight.  

She wouldn’t see him tomorrow.  The thought bothered her more than she cared to admit.  Tonight she would finish her mission and she would return home to the family she had created.  

She entered her room for the last time.  Amara and Samara were already there, waiting for her.  She realized that she had been gone far longer this evening than she had been any of the previous evenings she had stayed there.  She had no doubt that these girls already knew what she had been up to, but they waited for her all the same.  

The two girls stood as made her way into the room, saying nothing as they fell into their nightly routine.  Amara’s hands were in her hair, removing the combs and jewels, letting her braids fall over her shoulders.  Samara worked her dress off over her undergarments, saying nothing of the creases that appeared in the fabric over her hips.  Samara placed the dress back on her bed, removing her gloves next before helping Amara unbraid the rest of her hair.  

When her hair was down and brushed out, Samara reached to remove the necklace Kylo had given to her.  Rey stopped her immediately, her hands rising to brush against the cool metal against her throat.  She traced her fingers over it thoughtfully, a frown on her lips.

“I will remove this myself,”  Rey responded when she saw Samara awaiting her command.  The servant girl nodded, and she and Amara busied themselves by loosening Rey’s impossibly tight undergarments.  

On her first night here, Rey had realized early on that Amara and Samara routinely undressed dignitaries until they were nude.  That, however, was not something with which Rey was comfortable.  She was insecure in her body, and despite all of Obi-Wan’s dolling up, he would never be able to remove the scars she had acquired from rough living.  Thus, she always stopped them before they stripped her completely.

Now, Amara and Samara only loosened her undergarments enough for her to be able to remove them herself.  For that, Rey was grateful.  She would miss the two of them after she left as well.  They didn’t talk much, but Rey had grown to like both of them and enjoyed their company.  Sometimes it was nice to have other girls around.

Before Amara and Samara left for the evening, they scrubbed Rey’s face clean of makeup,  making sure she would be fresh for tomorrow.  For that, Rey was also grateful.  She didn’t want to give Poe and Finn a reason to make fun of her as they had before she left for  the palace.  

“Goodnight, princess,”  Amara and Samara said before they exited through the servant’s door at the back of her room.  Rey bid them goodnight as well, waiting until she could no longer hear their footsteps before she turned her attention to the trunk Obi-Wan insisted she bring.

Rey dug through the endless gowns and common clothes in order to find the only outfit she actually cared about, her own.  It felt like it had been years since she had last seen the dull beige scavenger outfit she had fashioned for herself.  

She shed her constraining undergarments quickly, tossing them onto the floor in favor of pulling her old off-white tank top over her head, followed by her dull beige leggings.  Lastly, she fastened her sash over her chest and waist with a well-worn leather belt and pulled on her boots.  It felt good to finally be comfortable.

She pulled a soft canvas bag over her shoulder, containing a communications device Finn had insisted she carry and some other essentials.  She pulled three ties for her hair from the bag, quickly fashioning her hair into three small buns to keep it out of her face.  She was ready to complete her mission.

Her first instinct was to retreat through her window and head toward the gardens from there.  However, Rey’s window faced the outside of the palace, not the inside .  For her to get to the gardens from there she would have to walk almost completely around the enormous castle and through the front entryway.  It would be much easier, but more dangerous, for her to escape via her doorway out into the hall.  

Her guards had left for the evening, as they did every evening,  which was something Rey found both comforting and slightly confusing.  No one had tried to end her life in her sleep though, so she supposed she was better off.  

She opened her door slightly, light spilling from her bedroom and out into the darkened hallway.  She watched for a long moment, waiting to see if anyone was going to pass by before she exited her room, shutting the door behind her with a soft  _ click _ .

Rey remembered the path from the garden by heart, having paid attention with grueling detail to every turn and step that Kylo took when he led her back.  After all, the palace was huge, and Rey could easily find herself lost, and likely discovered by Palace Guards, if she didn’t know where she needed to go.

The journey from her bedroom to the gardens was quiet, almost too quiet.  She wondered why she had hardly seen any guards stationed on that particular route.  Though, she wasn’t exactly in the position to question however the gods had seemed fit to bless her.  

Even without the twinkling lights, the gardens were still breathtaking.  They smelled so rich and aromatic; the dark brown soil combining with the intoxicating aroma of the flowers was divine.  Yet another thing she would miss about the palace, but she could not let herself be distracted from her mission.  

She retraced their steps back through the garden, finding her way back to Kylo’s treasures with relative ease.  She stood before the large wooden door with a strange and conflicted expression on her face.  She traced her fingers over the wooden planks slowly as if she was saying goodbye.  Then, she retrieved the stolen key from her canvas bag and entered without resistance.  

She slipped into Kylo’s sanctuary unnoticed, making her way hastily to where the lamp still sat, prominently displayed atop the stone pedestal. She grabbed it quickly and carefully, stowing it away in her bag.  There was no time to waste; she needed to get back to Obi-Wan. She had already spent too much time in this palace and away from her boys.

She left the garden, closing the door behind her and promptly dropping Kylo’s key into the dirt right outside.  She had no further use for it, not now, and hopefully not ever.  Then she headed back into the maze.  

She found the palace again without incident, but now she was tasked with finding the front entry way.  The only way to get in and out of the palace was through a single gate located at the front of the large walls that surround the castle.  The gate was huge, but her departure would remained unnoticed, hidden by the size of the gate itself.  Even if the suddenly absent guards were to notice her leaving, it was not as though they could stop her.  She had the foresight to stash her newly-upgraded speeder outside of the palace walls.  She would be long gone before they even realized what was happening.

Inside of the palace, everything looked the same.  Rey knew if she wasn’t careful, she would find herself so irrevocably lost that she could get caught by one of the guards.  All she had to do was find her way out of this maze and get back to the main entrance.  At this point, the only thing that mattered was for her to escape with both her life and Obi-Wan’s lamp.

Rey was still trying to make sense of the layout of the palace when she finally heard the sound of one of the fountains.  So far, she only knew of three fountains that were located around the palace: the one in the gardens, the one in Kylo’s quarters, and the one located at the front entrance.  For her sake, she hoped it was the last.

She rounded the corner, spotting the exact fountain she was hoping for.  Rey sighed in relief and smiled fondly at the fountain.  Without it, she was afraid she would have spent far too long wandering the halls before she finally made her escape.

Upon moving further into the palace entryway, however, Rey heard footsteps and voices.  She bit back a frustrated groan and rolled her eyes.  Of course it couldn’t have possibly been that easy.  She quickly ducked behind a nearby potted plant, contorting her body to fit snugly in the small hiding space that it provided.  

“Check to make sure we’re alone,” Hux barked.

“Yes sir,” Phasma’s cool voice came.  Rey tried to make herself even smaller.  Phasma began to check the room around them, her footsteps getting closer and closer to where Rey was hiding.  Rey wasn’t certain this plant hid her completely enough to avoid Phasma’s piercing gaze.  She could hope, however.  

“There’s never anyone here at this hour,” Snoke said, sounding impatient. “You may terminate your search, Phasma.  We have business to discuss.”

“Yes, master,”  Phasma responded, stopping just shy of Rey’s potted plant to rejoin Hux and Snoke closer to the fountain.  

Rey tried to control her panicked breathing, gripping her chest as if to try and slow down her heart.  This entire moment was nerve wracking and Rey wanted it to be over.  She never thought she would be grateful for Snoke, but in this moment she was.  She just hoped none of them would be able to hear the sound of her almost gasping for air behind this plant.

“What are we going to do about the girl?”  Hux asked, cutting straight to the point.  Rey tensed at the mention of her, chewing her lip to keep from gasping.  They were talking about her.  She supposed it made sense, as she had made an impression on Kylo, and despite her chagrin, he had made an impression on her as well.

“We get rid of her,” Snoke responded, his tone dry and matter-of-fact, as if he had expected Hux to come to the same conclusion. “We cannot hope to control Kylo Ren if he is hung up on some whore from Coruscant.”  

Rey bit her tongue to hold down a noise of protest.  How dare he call her something so vile and disrespectful?  And what did he mean, by “control Kylo”?  Everything in this palace was confusing and sinister and she didn’t want to be a part of it anymore.  She didn’t even want to hear this discussion.

“Wouldn’t he question her absence?” Hux asked flatly, “You saw what happened between them in the gardens, father.  It isn’t likely the girl would just vanish.”

Rey covered her mouth with her hand and bit down harder on her tongue.  Her eyes began to water.  They had been watching them in the garden.  They had seen her in such an intimate moment that it made rage and bile rise in her throat.  She had trusted that they were alone, but obviously not.  And now they were planning to end her life because of it.  Well, pity for them, they wouldn’t be able to find her.

“No matter,” Snoke responded, “He won’t be around much longer than she.  With the girl gone, we can force Kylo into a marriage with you, and continue our original plan.  The kingdom will be ours, and Kylo Ren will perish.”

In her short time knowing Hux and Snoke, their mindset shouldn’t have surprised her.  It was highly likely that both of them would kill for power, but Rey wanted to believe that no one was so despicable.  It turned her stomach to think that perhaps the two of them had gleefully murdered other suitors from other royal families.  Though from the way everyone had been surprised by Kylo’s sudden acceptance of her, she didn’t think they had to.  

Her first meeting with Kylo had been off-putting, after all.  He seemed so haughty and rude, she could see why any other visiting dignitary would want to leave just as quickly as they had arrived.  She hoped the latter was true, even if it made her all the more foolish for falling into this cruel trap.

“How do we dispose of the girl without alerting her family?” Hux asked, “We don’t need the House of Naberrie to cause an incident.”

Snoke chuckled darkly.

“Oh, I very much doubt that bottom feeder is from the most prominent family in Coruscant,” Snoke responded, “And even if she is, the House of Naberrie is no match for us.  If they even think of rising against us, we’ll destroy them.  Just as we destroyed the Damerons.”

“Yes, father,” Hux responded, signaling the time for debate was over.  

“Then let us strike quickly,” Snoke responded, “Lest the girl dig her disgusting claws into him deeper.”  

Rey’s nostrils flared in outrage.  Snoke was calling  _ her _ disgusting?  The thought made her feel a rage so profound it terrified her.  In that moment, she knew she could kill him.  

“As you wish,”  Hux and Phasma both responded to Snoke’s command, following after him as he vanished down one of the nearby hallways.  

Rey waited until she could no longer hear their footsteps before she came out of her hiding place.  They had planned to kill her  _ tonight _ .  Not to mention they also planned to kill Kylo after his  _ forced _ marriage to Hux.  The thought made her sick, her stomach gurgling uncomfortably.

She had to  _ warn _ Kylo of what was going to happen to him.  But...she also had to see her mission completed.  Obi-Wan was her teacher, and he was important.  He had less time than Kylo, and it took time to plan a wedding, especially one that involved royals.  She could save Obi-Wan and warn Kylo if she played her cards right.

She made her way through the darkness and out into the desert night.  The water along the steps was still running, sloshing loudly to hide her footsteps as she ran down the stairs.  The gate was looming closer and closer in front of her, and she almost sighed in relief when her feet hit the desert sand at the base of the stairs.  

“Hello, princess,” a cool feminine voice drawled before she could move any further into the sand.  

Perhaps she had been too ambitious.  

She whirled around and saw Phasma leaning nonchalantly against a nearby pillar.  

“C-Captain” Rey stuttered, her mind not working fast enough to think of a relevant excuse, “I- I was just…”

“No excuses, girl,” Snoke said, emerging from the shadows nearby.  And that’s when Rey knew what was going on: they were waiting for her.  Somehow they had known she had been there the whole time.

“Did you honestly think I couldn’t sense you?” Snoke asked, “ _ Me _ ?  The most powerful sorcerer left alive?  I knew you were there hiding.  I knew what you were the moment I sat down with you at dinner.”

Snoke paced back in forth in front of her, like a predator stalking its prey.  Rey said nothing, there was nothing she could say to get out of this.  The three of them had caught her.  This had always been a possibility, a wrench in her plans.  She had hoped it wouldn’t come to this, but in her foolish ambition she had believed that she could complete her mission to save Obi-Wan and also return to rescue Kylo.  She should have known better.

Now she could do neither.  

“Do you have anything to say for yourself, street rat?” Hux hissed from behind her, finally revealing himself to be amongst the group.  She hunched her shoulders, giving in.  He had figured her out, though she supposed she had made it easy for him with her worn clothing and simple canvas bag.

“Nothing?” Hux asked, but Rey stayed silent.  Nothing she said would make a difference, and it wasn’t as if she had brought any weapons with her.  They would have been found too easily in her luggage. It was already risky enough for her to have brought a communications device.  Even that was useless now.  Even if she tried to call Finn, Poe, and Obi-Wan at this hour, all she would do was give them away to the enemy and get herself killed faster.  

“How common of you,”  Hux remarked, after a long silence settled over them.  Rey turned over her shoulder to look at him as he watched her in the shadow of the stairs.  He regarded her for a long moment, and Rey could practically see the gears turning in his head.  He was not quite sure of how he was going to dispose of her yet, but Rey hoped for something quick and painless.  

She turned back to stare at Phasma and Snoke while Hux deliberated.  She took note that Phasma had already drawn the blaster from her hip and Rey tried her best to relax.  

“I  _ was _ just going to have Phasma shoot you,” Hux began, and Rey tensed at the sound of his voice, “But that would be much too messy.  Besides, I think a drowned rat would be rather poetic, don’t you think?”

Rey remained silent.  Hux had made up his mind, and not in the way she had hoped. It didn’t seem like anything was going to go her way at this point.  Death by drowning was notoriously slow and painful.  She supposed that’s what Hux was going for.  He would probably get a kick out of watching her thrash and claw and try to swim.

She had never learned how to swim.

“Phasma, have your most trusted men bind her and take her to the Oasis,” Snoke ordered after a long silence. Rey supposed he was deciding if drowning her was the best course of action. “And I want the both of you to stay until you’re certain she’s dead.  I want proof of her demise.”

Rey realized now that it wouldn’t matter if she could swim or not.  Snoke would take no chances, and she should have expected they would have her bound. 

Despite the guards being previously absent, it took no time at all for a few of Phasma’s most trusted men to arrive with rope.  They pulled her wrists behind her back harshly and bound her elbows and hands so tightly she had no hope of moving.  Then they bound her ankles together.  They had to carry her to one of the desert gliders the Palace Guard used to patrol the land outside of the walls.  

Rey didn’t struggle, not even when one of the guards stroked her face and called her a “good little rat”.  Or when he gripped the front of his trousers and asked her if she “wanted a treat”.  Phasma took care of that for her when she shoved him forward to the front of the vehicle to drive them into the night.

They didn’t even bother touching her canvas bag, she realized.  They had no idea that she had the lamp.  Not that it mattered at all, considering where they were headed, but she could claim her own personal victory.  At least she would be making it outside of the palace walls with her prize.  

The gates opened wide for them, the desert glider roaring to life.  Rey closed her eyes tight and waited.  The glider lurched forward, signaling the beginning its drive outside of the palace walls and to the Oasis.

No one spoke, though even if they did they wouldn’t be heard over the impossibly loud roar of the glider’s engines.  They didn’t drive long, and Rey couldn’t help but think of that as a mercy.  It already felt like she’d been waiting too long for them to execute her.  

The glider stopped and the soldier who had disrespected her killed the engines.  Rey opened her eyes and stared out into the darkness.  She couldn’t see the oasis yet; all she could see were the shapes of the soldiers moving to retrieve her from the bed of the glider.  

They pulled on the ropes on her arms to bring her closer, turning her away from where they stood.  Then they forced her to her feet between them, dragging her legs through the sand and to the oasis.  

Rey didn’t get to see many things like this in the desert.  All the oases were generally the property of high-level merchants or corrupt royals.  She assumed this one was the property of the palace, considering they felt comfortable enough to end her life here.

Even in the dark, she could see that the water in the oasis was clear.  And it would be even more beautiful, she thought, to see it in daylight.  But the nights were long in the desert, and she imagined she would be long gone before the sun rose over the horizon.  

“Last words?” one of the soldiers asked.  Rey took in a deep breath through her nose.  There was nothing she could say or do to mess anything up now.  She supposed she did have something to say.

“Help me, Obi-Wan,” she said, knowing her plea was moot, “you’re my only hope.”

The soldiers exchanged glances and shook their heads.  She knew they were not the perfect last words, but it made her feel better knowing she had done everything she could.  Even calling out to a slowly fading magical being that wasn’t likely to hear her at all.

The water of the oasis was like ice slicing through her skin when she made contact.  They had thrown her in without warning, chilling her body all the way down to her bones.  Perhaps she would die of hypothermia before her body drowned, but Rey knew she wasn’t going to be that lucky.  

At first, she expected to float on top of the water, something she had seen other people do in Jakku, but she sank immediately.  Deeper and deeper into the water until her back made contact with the bottom, the wet sand cementing her there.

Rey struggled against her bindings despite herself.  Her chest was tight, her lungs just beginning to beg for air.  It wasn’t long before the panic and pain set in.  Her eyes were wide, her mouth closed tight, and her chest burning.  

It felt like a fire was slowly licking its way through her body, starting with her lungs.  She had never been in any situation where she needed air so badly.  She felt it the second her body gave up and her mouth opened, greedily sucking water into her lungs.  

She fought the bindings harder, feeling them bite into her arms and wrists.  It hurt, but not as much as the flame that consumed her entire torso.  She screamed into the water, bubbles flowing from her open mouth to the top of the oasis.  

She screamed into the water until she couldn’t anymore.  Until black began to circle around the edges of her eyes.  Her greedy lungs sucked in more water, making her body feel bloated and strange.  

She could feel herself fading, and she accepted it.  The more she became okay with the idea of dying, the less she fought against it, the more a profound peace settled over her.  

She didn’t think of the things she had yet to do or all the years Hux had robbed from her.  None of those things mattered so much as the strange warmth and happiness that had begun to settle in.  

It felt like the sun was rising, like it was warming every part of her.  She couldn’t see it anymore, she couldn’t see the oasis, but she knew her eyes were open.  Somehow she knew she had never closed them.  

And then she was gone, she let go.  Her last shred of resolve broke, fading into acceptance.  Death was always an eventuality, and now she  faced it.  There was nothing left, nothing more for her to do.  The thought was almost bliss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part Three resumes Thursday Sept. 22, 2016.


	8. On a Dark Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I image death so much it feels more like a memory. Is this where it gets me? Beginning of Part 3.

**She had always imagined that death would be a void of emptiness.**  She had imagined that she would fade into the dark inevitability of it.  But now, as she surfaced, heading towards a blinding bright light and taking a deep cleansing breath, she supposed reincarnation was more likely.  

“Rey!” Finn shouted frantically, gripping her shoulders to steady her.  Rey sputtered and wheezed in response, vomiting the water from her lungs.  She could barely make out the world around her.  It was all shapes, and darkness, and the smell of Finn.

“Hurts,” she muttered, trying to get her eyes to focus on something.  It proved too difficult.  Her body fell back to the bed, chest and lungs burning from her effort to breathe.  She moaned softly before her eyes flutter closed again.  Back to oblivion.

It was dark here, but she could hear far off voices.  She felt like she was still underwater, and the thought made her chest clench uncomfortably.  Her vision was clouded by darkness, her eyes fluttering between open and closed.  All she could see was black.

“Can you hear me, Rey?” someone asked.  She tried to respond to them, but her mouth wouldn’t move.  Her whole body was paralyzed except for the fluttering of her eyes.  She tried for a long time to speak, to moan, to gesture,  _ anything _ , but none of it worked.  When she finally gave up, she slipped back into the quiet oblivion of sleep, heart hammering.

The room was blinding when she woke up.  It hurt for her to open her eyes for longer than a second.  She moaned, sound actually escaping from her lips.  It startled her at first, but she was thankful for the change.  

Next to her, someone shifted.  She could hear the rustling of fabric, the scraping of a chair on the floor.  

Rey tried to speak then, her lips forming words that she couldn't say.  Soft sounds escaped, but nothing coherent. it frustrated her, but she didn’t give up.

Distantly, Rey was aware of strange background noise.  Voices, footsteps, a soft and rhythmic  _ beep, beep, beep _ .  She was somewhere unfamiliar, she realized.  A nervous sweat settled over her skin.

“Rey?” Finn asked cautiously, and Rey finally surfaced.  Her eyes fluttered open in surprise, narrowing at the brightness of the lights above her.

“Finn?” she croaked, her throat raw and damaged.  She could speak.  She could  _ finally _ speak.  Finn’s arms are around her in an instant, pulling her close and crushing her to his chest.  

Despite the discomfort this brought her, Rey grabbed Finn in return, desperate for his comfort and presence to be near her.

“You’re awake,” Finn sobbed into her hair, and for the first time Rey was aware of the gravity of the situation.  She jerked away from Finn to stare at him with curiosity.  There were tears in his eyes as he stared back at her.

“Obi-Wan?” Rey asked, avoiding the heavier topic for now, in favor of knowing whether or not she had completed her mission with only a minor failure.  

“You’re safe,” Obi-Wan said from nearby.  Rey gasped and jerked in surprise, turning hastily to look at him.  He smiled at her fondly. “You’re alright, Rey,” he continued. “I heard you.” His ethereal blue glow had returned and he looked much better than she remembered.  Rey smiled back at him.

“Heard me?” she asked, still somewhat delirious.  

“Too difficult to explain now,” Obi-Wan responded hastily with a shake of his head. “You need to rest.”

Rey shook her head back at him.  It felt as though she had been asleep for months.  She needed to get out of bed, she needed to know how she survived this.

She needed to warn... **_Kylo_ ** .

Rey’s face paled, her hands gripping and tugging the blankets off of her.  Beneath, all she was wearing was a thin gown made out of what felt like paper.  She didn’t care, she swung her legs over the side of her bed, scrambling to stand up.

Finn and Obi-Wan look horrified at her sudden change in demeanor.

“Rey, stop,” Finn protested, grabbing her legs and trying to push her back into bed.  Rey was in no condition to fight him, but she tried regardless.  Finn was unphased by her onslaught of slapping, pinching, and shoving.  Rey became winded too fast.  

So she let him push her back into the bed and pull the blankets up to cover her.  

She was right about one thing: this place was unfamiliar.  The room was blinding white in color, with machines and bags of liquid hanging all around her.  In her hands were needles, in her nostrils were small plastic tubes that breathed air, and on her chest were colored sticky circles that lead to a machine that beeped in time with the sound of her heartbeat in her ears.

“Did you make this?” Rey asked Obi-Wan, in awe.  Before her time, perhaps during the time in which Obi-Wan grew up, there had been machines like this.  Machines that were used for more than warfare and transportation.  If you looked hard enough on a scavenging mission, excavating the huge metal beasts abandoned in the desert, you could find things like this.

But no one knew how they worked.  Nor were they necessary to survival.  She couldn't sell them for parts, so she left them alone mostly. Sometimes her curiosity got the better of her.  Now, seeing them up close and working was exciting and terrifying in a way.

She watched Obi-Wan expectantly, awaiting his answer.

He shook his head at her.

“No,” he responded. “There are a lot of things you missed while you were gone.”

“I was gone for barely longer than a month,” Rey protested. “How could something like this have happened without me?”

Finn and Obi-Wan exchanged a worried glance.  Finn’s teeth caught his bottom lip and chewed on it, and Obi-Wan’s hands clasped in front of him.

Rey just wanted  _ answers _ .

“Haven’t I?” she asked, interrupting their silent conversation.  The two men were silent, looking away from each other and pointedly avoiding her gaze.

“What  _ happened _ ?”  Rey demanded when their silence had gone on too long.  

“The answer to your question is complicated,” Finn said, giving her an unsatisfying answer.

“Then  _ un _ complicate it, Finn,” Rey responded, on the edge of losing her patience.  She didn’t have time for this, she had to get out of here.  She had to escape and warn Kylo about Hux and Snoke’s plan to end his life.  She couldn’t let him go, not like that. Not when she knew he was being controlled by that disgusting monster that had tried to have her killed.

“I can’t, not yet,” Finn responded, another nonsense answer.  She thought he was her  _ friend, _ loyal to her, to the family they had built.  But here he was being cryptic in a way she’d never experienced before. She grew angrier as time passed.

Rey let a frustrated growl rip free from her throat.  Her vocal cords felt raw, damaged from her time spent in the water and she winced at the feeling.  

“Tell me what happened, Finn,” Rey commanded, her eyes narrowing into slits as she tried to get him to speak the same way Snoke had done to her.  

Finn looked conflicted, lost, almost  _ pained _ for a moment before Obi-Wan stopped her onslaught.  Rey felt disoriented in the wake of having her teacher’s power turned on her, and was thoroughly admonished. 

Finn sighed, running his hands over his face to rid himself of the feeling of his best friend trying to get information out of him in the most disturbing way possible.

“What happened, Rey,” Finn spat, his voice filled with venom, “Is that you were nearly  _ killed _ because his royal highness, Prince fracking Kylo Ren-”

“Kylo did  _ not _ do this,” Rey growled, interrupting Finn’s speech.  Finn looked taken aback, shifting uncomfortably under Rey’s intense gaze.  

They were both silent for a long time after that.  Finn didn’t know what to say to her.  

“Rey,” he said her name quietly after a long, pregnant pause. “I don’t know what you remember, but Obi-Wan found you half dead at the bottom of an oasis pool surrounded by Kylo Ren’s cronies.” 

Finn continued, cutting her off when it looked like she was about to protest again, “You’re lucky to be alive, Rey.  They thought you would never come out of your coma, that your brain had been deprived of oxygen for too long.  I was so worried.  I thought I would never see you again!”

“They?” Rey questioned, tensing at the thought of someone having an opinion on her health.  

Finn nodded his head.

“That didn’t matter right now, Rey,” he said. “All that matters is that you’re okay, that you came back.”

Rey wasn’t so sure, but she let Finn have this small victory.  He was nearing hysterics at this point at the thought of losing her.  Finn’s words had her troubled and terrified of what she had missed while she was at the palace, but she could let it go.  Well, most of it.

“That’s just it, Finn,” Rey began, “Kylo didn’t order Phasma and Hux to hurt me, it was Snoke.” Rey swallowed hard at the memory of him, grey and half-rotted like a monster from her nightmares. “They’ve been controlling him all these years.  He’s in  _ trouble _ .  They’re going to kill him after he marries Hux.  Please tell me I’m not too late to stop it.”

Finn looked uncomfortable, turning away from Rey to share another long stare with Obi-Wan.

“You’re not too late,” Obi-Wan said softly, eliciting a sigh of relief from Rey, “But the wedding is in three days time.  And, in case you haven’t noticed, you’re in no position to b-”

“Three  _ days _ ?” Rey hissed, moving to sit up quickly, “how long have I been asleep?”

Finn sighed, approaching her bedside again in an attempt to to calm her down.  He placed both of his hands on her shoulders, moving so his face was the only thing she could see.

“That doesn’t  _ matter _ right now, Rey,” he repeated. “What matters is that you stay safe and recover.  There’s nothing you can do to help  _ Kylo Ren _ ,” he spat the name out like it was poison. “He’s made his own bed.”

Rey refused to believe it.  The man she had known in the palace had been so kind to her, she couldn’t just leave him to die by the hands of people he thought he could trust.  It wasn’t fair; he wasn’t at all the monster she and Finn had originally thought him to be.  

“I can’t just leave him to die,” Rey protested, voice wavering.  She felt as though she was on the verge of tears and she hated how weak Kylo still made her.  She felt so useless lying there in bed when there was still work left to be done.  

“What happened to you?” Finn asked, sounding disgusted by her defense of Kylo Ren.

“What happened to me?” Rey asked, her voice rising, “What happened to you?” Rey was angry. She could feel something akin to power rising within her, the same way it had manifested itself the first time Rey ignored Obi-Wan’s warnings to keep her emotions in check. She was practically seething as she stared Finn down.

He had the good sense to look  _ afraid _ .

“He’s not the monster you think he is,” Rey protested, insistent on that point.  

“Not the monster I think he is,” Finn repeated, throwing her own words back at her, “You’ve known him barely a month, Rey.  And he’s already tried to kill you  _ twice _ .” 

He saw that she was about to protest, but he wouldn’t let her.  

“I trained in his Palace Guard for  _ years _ ,” Finn shouts, “I’ve seen him fight, I’ve seen him  _ kill _ .  And you think he’s not a monster because you spent a month playing royalty and he was what?  _ Nice _ to you? He was  _ playing _ you, Rey!”

Rey’s face was red, contorted in fury when Finn was finished speaking.  The air around her seemed to crackle and heat up, and she barely held in her contempt for this man she had once considered her brother.  

Finn stood his ground, fear only flickering over his face for an instant before he erased it in favor of staring her down.  This infuriated Rey on a level she was ashamed to admit.  She tamped down her power, the strange, dangerous part of her she didn’t yet understand.

“ _ Get out _ ,” she commanded, when she got a better hold over herself.  Finn’s expression faltered, his stoic demeanor belaying hurt and confusion.  Rey ignored this.

“ **_LEAVE_ ** !” Rey screamed in his face.

“Rey,” Obi-Wan said, trying to get her to calm down and think rationally.  Rey turned her gaze over to where he floated, gazing at her sadly.

“You too, old man,” Rey hissed, heat sizzling the air in the room.  Rey was barely under control.  

“ **_GO_ ** !” she shrieked, a pained expression on her face as several of the objects in the room rattled and creaked.  

Finn and Obi-Wan looked sad and concerned when they left the room, but didn’t put up much of a fight against Rey’s shouting.  

Rey’s chest ached at the thought that she was disappointing and hurting them, but this was the only way she was going to be able to escape.  

Kylo had been kind to her while she was at the palace. Their first meeting in the cave had been less than ideal, but when she was courting him, he treated her like a princess.  Which was to be expected, but from what the servants had said, he hadn’t treated any of his previous suitors with the same respect that he had shown to her.  That meant something.  It had to.

Even if it didn’t mean anything, Rey wasn’t the type of person to stand by when she could prevent something bad from happening. She couldn’t save everyone and everything, but she  _ could _ repay Kylo’s kindness with a kindness of her own.

Outside of her door, she could hear the muffled sounds of voices.  Rey frowned at the thought.  This meant that there would be someone stationed there.  Now whether that was to keep her in, or keep other people out, was open to interpretation, but it meant that was no longer a viable escape route.

She would need to get creative.

Rey began to methodically remove everything attached to her from the machines next to the bed.  She removed the needles from her hands, the plastic that helped her breathe, and finally the strange sticky colored circles from her chest.  

The machine next to her screamed in protest and Rey jerked, suddenly alert.  She quickly yanked the cable connecting it to its power source free.  The machine died with a high pitched squeal and the room fell into silence,

Rey watched the door for a long time, waiting to see if someone was going to come in.  No one did.

Rey removed the blankets from her legs again, swinging them over the side of the bed and standing up.  Her legs buckled under her weight immediately, sending her down to the floor.  She held in a surprised shriek, her palms making contact with the tile floor with a loud slapping sound.  

Her hands stung instantly.  This wasn’t something she’d ever experienced before, her legs not working.  She turned back to the bed, pulling herself up with help from the sheets and mattress.  Her legs trembled from her weight, muscles screaming in protest.  

She would not let this be her reason for failing to rescue Kylo from Hux and Snoke.  

She stood shakily, holding onto the bed and using it to maneuver around the room.  Near one of the stark white counters, she saw an industrial-sized vent on the wall, a foot above the floor.  Next, she noticed her clothing placed on the counter.  

If they didn’t want her to escape, they shouldn’t have made it so easy.

She dressed with minor difficulty, her balance near nonexistent.  But it felt good to be back in her old clothes instead of a paper thin backless gown and no undergarments.  

Then she turned her attention to her only escape route, the vent above the floor.  She limped over to the grating, legs shaking from the effort.  She lowered herself before the vent, eyeing the opening for a moment before deciding.  It was going to be tight, but it was worth it to secure her freedom.

She tugged on the grating, her arms shaking, muscles protesting their sudden overuse.  It took three tries before she managed to pry it free with a surprised “oomph”.  

Then she climbed through the opening on all fours, securing the grating closed behind her.  Wouldn’t want someone finding out how she escaped and trying to follow her.  

She crawled through the vents as quickly as she could, watching rooms and corridors pass by as she did.  She watched and waited for her opportunity to escape from the system of vents, but most of the rooms and hallways also had people in them.  

It was not until she came to a room on the far corner of the vent shaft that she felt certain enough that it was empty.  The overhead lights in the room were turned off and it was shrouded in silence.  And Rey could feel a tug, a pull, the same pull she felt when she found the lamp.  It felt  _ safe _ .

She contorted herself in the vent, moving so she could kick free the grating that lead to the office.  She was almost to the door of the room before she realized she was not alone.

“Hello,” a woman said from behind the desk, eyes dancing with amusement. “You must be Rey.”

Rey stared at the woman, mouth agape from where she knelt on the floor, still struggling to walk.  

The other woman extended her hand to Rey, ignoring her position on the floor.

“I’m General Organa,” she continued despite Rey’s discomfort.  Rey grabbed the side of General Organa’s desk and pulled herself to her feet, gripping the General’s hand and shaking it. 

She knew when she had lost.

“What brings you to my office?” Leia asked, nodding to where Rey had kicked the vent grating into the floor. “Through a somewhat unorthodox route.”

Rey just stared at her.  She had never met a general before.  But Rey could still feel it, the pull in her chest.  She felt like she could trust her.

“How do you know my name?” Rey asked, not bothering to answer her question at first.  She needed to know why this woman was aware of her.

“Obi-Wan is an old family friend,” Leia informed her, a soft smile on her face. “He speaks very highly of you.”  

Rey frowned and stared down at the floor.  He probably wouldn’t hold her in such high regard if he knew she was going against his wishes.  Not to mention she had just been disrespectful to him and Finn.  

“Now,” Leia continued, sensing Rey’s distress, “What brings you here, Rey?”

“I’m…” Rey began, looking worried, then confused. “I’m trying to get a message to someone.  I...I need to warn them.”

Leia watched her for a moment, taking the young girl in, watching as she gripped the side of her desk to hold herself up.  Her legs were trembling under the weight of her body, her face was flushed, and her chest heaved as she panted for air.  She looked as though she’d overexerted herself.  

“You’re in no condition to be delivering messages,” Leia said, much to Rey’s chagrin. “Perhaps we could have someone deliver it for you?” 

Rey shook her head vehemently.

“It has to be me,” Rey responded, her voice filled with determination.  Leia frowned.

“I have people I trust that can deliver it instead, Rey, it’s no trouble…” Leia tried, but Rey shook her head again.

“He...he won’t trust anyone other than me,” Rey responded.  Though she was certain she burned that bridge when she stole his lamp and disappeared into the night for however long she had  been stuck here.  From the way her body felt, weak and trembling, she assumed it had been longer than a few days.

“I see,” Leia said. “And who is this man?”  He had to be important to her if she was willing to risk injury by leaving the Resistance base in such a condition.  She had just survived in critical condition from drowning, and her first thought upon waking was this.

Rey’s cheeks flushed slightly, confirming Leia’s suspicions.

“If I told you, you wouldn’t let me go,” Rey responded, not meeting Leia’s gaze.  She shifted, moving her hands along the wood of the desk and trying to steady herself enough to stand without it.

“I’m not going to let you go if you don’t tell me who it is,” Leia responded.  It was likely she wouldn’t let Rey go anywhere at all.  She needed more information on the situation before she passed judgement.  If it was something she could do herself, she’d do it.  If not, she’d consider allowing Rey to leave the base depending on how dire the situation was.

Not alone, but she would consider it.

“Prince Kylo Ren,” Rey blurted, her face red with embarrassment.  Leia straightened in her chair.

“And what’s the message?” Leia asked.

“He’s going to be killed,” Rey responded, her gaze finally meeting Leia’s.  Her eyes were a mixture of urgency and concern.  

Leia looked haunted.  She hadn’t seen someone so worried about Kylo Ren in a long time.  Instead she was constantly faced with people calling him a monster.  Rey stood before her  _ concerned _ about his fate.

“He can handle himself, Rey,” Leia told her, though the worry she felt in the pit of her stomach told her otherwise.  She had heard from Finn and Obi-Wan that Kylo Ren had tried to kill Rey on more than one occasion.  The girl who stood before her right now, concerned about his well-being, didn’t seem to believe the had man tried to murder her.

“He can’t, not from this,” Rey insisted, “His advisor, Hux and the Supreme Advisor, Snoke have been planning this for a long time.”

Leia watched Rey carefully, considering her words.  She remembered Snoke from the time when she, Han, and Luke barely escaped from the palace with their lives, remembered how it had been  _ Ben _ who invited that monster to eradicate them.

“He did this to himself,” Leia said, though it broke her heart to admit it.  She hadn’t always been the most present mother; she was always more concerned about the politics that came with ruling than her own son.  

When he had begun to show inklings of the same power she possessed, she had no idea how to handle him.  She had called on her brother, had pushed him into private lessons with him.  Had taught him that his power was something to be feared, that the turbulent emotions he experienced as a result of not understanding his power were to be erased.  

As a child herself, she had never tried to understand the sort of power that she had.  It was left dormant within her in favor of ruling over her kingdom.  She didn’t practice the arts as her brother had; they were a dying breed, after all.  The last great war had seen to that, almost eradicating the entire race of sorcerers in the name of restoring balance to the world.

Her father had died in that fight.  As had her mother, and Obi-Wan.  

“Snoke is controlling him, General,” Rey protested, “He’s been controlling him for a long time.”  Leia could hardly look at her; the stirrings of hope in her chest were too painful.  She remembered the look in his eyes when he cast his family out all those years ago.  He was not at all the son she thought she had raised.  

“I can’t risk your life-” Leia began, but Rey cut her off.

“It’s not  _ your _ choice, General, it’s  _ mine _ .”

Rey commanded the room, she commanded respect in a way Leia hadn’t seen in decades.  She knew what she wanted, and she knew how to get it.  Leia realized then that if she sent Rey back to her room in the medical bay, no matter how many guards Leia stationed to be there with her, the girl would inevitably escape to complete her mission.

Leia sighed.

“You really think he’s worth saving?” Leia asked.  She already knew what Rey’s answer would be.  It was the same as hers.  He would always be worth saving.  

“Yes,” Rey told her. “He was kind to me.  I want to repay that kindness.”  

“According to your friend Finn, he tried to kill you.  Twice,” Leia countered.  Rey looked disgusted for a moment.  

“Finn doesn’t know what’s he’s talking about,” Rey responded, knowing full well that Kylo had tried to kill her in the Cave of Wonders.

“He seemed adamant,” Leia pressed.  

“Kylo never ordered my death, that was Hux, Snoke, and Phasma.  I promise you that he knew nothing about it.”  Leia watched her in silence for a long moment before nodding.  

“How exactly do you know my son?” she asked.  When she had spoken with Finn after they brought in Rey, all she got out of him was that Kylo Ren had done this to her.  Not how Rey had gotten into the palace so she could be harmed in the first place.  Even Obi-Wan was reluctant to talk about it.

“S-son?” Rey sputtered, surprised.

“Yes,” Leia responded, leaning back in her chair, “Kylo, or Ben as I know him, is my son.  Or, he was my son, before Snoke.”  Leia looked pained as she talked about him.

“I met his father, I…” Rey tried.  Leia shook her head.

“I assure you that whoever you met was not his father,” she said with a bitter laugh. “Han and I haven’t been welcome at the palace for a long time.”

“Oh,” Rey said, looking at her askance.  

Leia waits for her words to sink in.  

“Wait,” Rey said, finally understanding. “You’re  _ Leia _ Organa.”

“I am,” Leia said.

“ _ Princess _ Organa,” Rey continued, in awe.  She had heard stories, whispers about this woman growing up.  She was said to have died before Kylo’s “father” came into power.  To hear that she and her husband Han Solo were actually Kylo’s parents was...surprising, considering their story.  

Han and Leia were benevolent rulers; Jakku and the surrounding provinces had a time of great wealth and peace under their rule.  There were still scavengers and poor, but it was a different time.  Often the older people would talk about that time with reverence.  

After their untimely death, the country fell into squalor.  Everyone was displaced from their homes and jobs and forced out, leaving the provinces to decay.  

“I go by General Organa now,” Leia corrected her gently, “I haven’t been royalty in a long time.” 

“Sorry,” Rey said, a bit sheepish.  

“Back to the matter at hand,” Leia continued. “How do you know my son?”

Rey blushed down at her feet.  She was nervous to be talking to Kylo’s mother about what she had done, but Leia seemed genuinely interested.  

“I went to the palace as a favor to Obi-Wan.  To get his lamp back,” Rey said.  There was no need for Leia to know all the details of Kylo and Rey’s relationship whilst she was there.  

“And?” Leia asked, leaning forward and propping her elbows up on the table.  Rey shifted and stared down at the wood of Leia’s desk.  

“I pretended to be his suitor from Coruscant, from the House of Naberrie,” Rey said.  Leia chuckled and shook her head.  

“And no one tried to check up on that?” Leia asked.  Rey shook her head.  Leia laughed again, louder this time, her shoulders shaking with the effort.  

“House Naberrie is from Naboo, though it is rather close to Coruscant,” Leia said, voice rising, “My mother was of House Naberrie.  Ben’s  _ grandmother _ ,” Leia laughed again, shaking her head. “Of course Obi-Wan would tell you to say you’re from that house. Did anyone question it?”

“No one,” Rey responded.  It was odd that Obi-Wan would have told her to say she was from a house that was related to Kylo.  She was essentially saying she was his distant relative.  How had no one known?

“Nerf herders,” Leia said, still shaking her head.

“From what Finn told me, you were at the palace for awhile.  Longer than some of the other suitors, if I know my son,” Leia said, her interest in Rey piqued. “He’s very particular.”

“Yes,” Rey said, willing the flush that came to her cheeks to fade away. “I heard that about him at the palace.”

“He must have liked you,” Leia said.

“I’ve no idea why,” Rey informed her. “I was never very kind to him.”

“And yet he was kind to you.”

“He was, yes,” Rey said.  

Leia hummed, tenting her fingers and staring at Rey thoughtfully.  The Ben she knew was perpetually troubled, prone to anger and overreaction.  

Rey shifted again, the silence between them making her uncomfortable.  She was antsy to leave.  There were three days left until the wedding. She wanted to be able to get him away from Hux before he actually went through with it. She doubted he would even make it through the wedding night. Hux would likely murder him before then.  

“I don’t like the idea of you going anywhere in your condition,” Leia said pointedly, “but you’re right, I can’t stop you.  However, I can offer you help.  You’re familiar with Poe Dameron, correct?”

“Yes,” Rey said. “He should have come here with Finn and Obi-Wan, he saved us from the Cave of Wonders.”

“He’s one of my best pilots,” Leia told her with a nod.  Rey narrowed her eyes.

“Poe is part of your…” Rey faltered, searching for the word.

“Resistance,” Leia finished for her.

“Resistance?” Rey repeated, questioning.

“Yes, Poe is a part of our resistance. He joined several years ago after his parents’ death at the hands of the Palace Guard.  He hasn’t always been a soldier, but he’s proven himself rather adept at flying.”

Rey just nodded, not entirely sure where General Organa was going with this.  She didn’t need Poe’s entire backstory before she going off to try and save the life of her prodigal son.

“I want you to take him with you,” Leia said as if sensing Rey’s apprehension.  

“Poe?” Rey questions.

“Yes,” Leia said, holding up a hand to stop Rey when she began to protest. “I will not let you go alone.  I love my son, Rey, but you’ll forgive me if I do not trust him with someone’s life.  He nearly killed his own father the night we left the palace.  I won’t have your death on my conscience if he turns on you.”

“How can Poe help with that?” Rey asked.

“Like I said, he’s the best pilot in the resistance,” Leia told her. “It would benefit you to have someone that can make a quick getaway on your side.”

“Fine,” Rey said. “I’ll take him. But we need to leave as soon as possible.”

“That can be arranged,” Leia said, getting up from her desk to go to the door.  She opened it slightly, poking her head out into the hallway.  

“Pava,” she said to a woman walking by.  

“Yes, general?” she asked immediately.

“Get me Dameron, please,” Leia asked.  Pava nodded and did as she was told, turning around and heading back towards the hospital wing where Poe was standing guard outside of Rey’s door.  

*****

“General?” Poe asked when he entered the room.  It didn’t take him long to get there, but Rey had already sat down by the time he entered the room.  Her muscles burned from overexertion.  She couldn’t believe she was going to leave the base like this.

“Um, hello, Rey,” Poe said, dumbfounded and realizing now that he had spent the better part of his morning guarding an empty room.  He should have known she would escape.  

“Kriff,” Poe sighed, looking to the general for guidance.  She smiled at him sheepishly.  

“Dameron,” Leia began, glancing at Rey, “I have a mission for you.”

“I’m sorry about Rey, General Organa,” Poe tried, his cheeks heating up.  Leia shook her head, holding her hand up to stop him.

“You’re not in trouble, Dameron,” Leia said. “In fact, I need you to accompany Rey to the palace.”

Poe looked uncomfortable for a moment before schooling his expression.  He was a soldier. He wouldn’t ask questions; he would obey orders.  

“Yes ma’am,” Poe said through clenched teeth.  Leia grimaced at him, understanding his apprehension.  

“She won’t take no for an answer,” Leia informed him. “I figured you were her best bet in the event that something goes wrong.”

Poe couldn’t help but smirk at that.  He turned to Rey.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” he asked.

“More than anything,” Rey responded.  

Poe nodded. “Than let’s do it.”

Rey stood from the chair and walked behind him, out of Leia’s office and into the hall. Her stance was still shaky, her stride slow, but she was determined.

Leia watched them go, shaking her head.

“I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” she said under her breath.


	9. Rey's Word

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Poe doesn't have a good feeling about this. Rey has a good heart. More drama.

Poe didn’t say much as he and Rey made it to where his strange ship awaited them in the hangar.  He was opposed to this mission, but he didn’t disobey direct orders from General Organa.

If General Organa was willing to let Rey do this, then he was as well.  

“Thank you for this, Poe,” Rey said.  Poe almost snorted.  She thought he had a  _ choice _ in the matter.  If he had gotten his way, she would be back with Finn and Obi-Wan in the hospital wing.  Or better yet, she would have never gone to the palace at all.  

He had been there that night to obtain that lamp for the Resistance.  If only he had found it sooner, this whole situation could have been avoided.  

“I’m serious,” Rey continued. “Thank you.”

Poe hummed noncommittally and continued through the hangar.  Rey followed closely behind him, keeping up as best she could with Poe’s strides.  

There were more ships than just his in the hangar.  But from the look of it, his was the only one that ran.  The rest were the same as the great metal beasts in the desert of Jakku: scrap for someone to scavenge.

Poe’s ship hovered above the floor. It looked like a long bed of sheet metal, but it was one of the sturdiest things Rey had ever ridden on.  

She stood beside it, watching Poe climb onto his ship and sit down, accessing the controls that hovered above the machine itself, projecting themselves as orange and blue light.  The entire ship was nothing short of magic in Rey’s eyes.  Especially when they started flying.  

Poe steered them out of the hangar and out to the open sand.  There was nothing around them for miles as far as Rey could see.  Even the long-dead mechanical beasts were absent from this part of the desert.  

Rey watched the desert sprawl out before them like an ocean.  The sand blew in the wind behind them, forming new hills and dunes like it was alive.  

Poe was livid: more than livid, he was  _ terrified _ .  If anything happened to Rey, it would destroy Finn.   And here he was flying her right back into the proverbial belly of the beast.  

He took a turn too fast, making his already unsettled stomach lurch.  He heard Rey gasp softly.  And he knew, he  _ knew _ that he didn’t have a good feeling about this.  

How dare she put him in the middle of something so important.  She was so adamant about saving this man.  This heartless royal who had slaughtered thousands for his own personal gain.  Here she was, her skin pale, her legs shaky, her voice hoarse, on her way to rescue him.  

The palace was 40 clicks west of the Resistance base.  Poe already knew the entire ride was going to be tense and silent.  Nothing he could do or say now would make a difference in how this would play out.

*****

Rey watched the desert in silence, tense and waiting.  Small structures appeared on the fringes of the direction they were flying in, and she knew they were getting closer to the palace.  

She felt the dread rising in her stomach at the thought of seeing Kylo again.  He probably thought she left him. No doubt that was what Hux told him when he and Phasma had returned from the Oasis.  

Like all the other suitors before her.  She had left him.  

She felt Poe watching her out of the corner of his eye as the first of the palace’s towers began to show over the horizon.  She knew she was tense, she knew she looked pale, and sick, and however else she could possibly look bad.  But this was something she needed to do.  

The palace loomed closer in the distance.  The entire structure pulled itself over the horizon,the heat around it shimmering like a mirage.  

Rey’s chest clenched, her stomach dropped, and her palms itched.  

They were close to the palace before Poe even asked where she wanted him to land.  Where she wanted him to leave her.  

Kylo’s room faced the garden, his balcony overlooking the grounds.  Rey feared Snoke and Hux might also have rooms overlooking the gardens.  It was risky, but she needed Poe to be as close as possible in the event that things don’t go according to her plan.  

“The gardens at the center of the palace.  Kylo’s room overlooks them. He has a balcony there.”  Poe nodded at her, looking conflicted, but he followed her instructions without protest.  

He hovered the ship over Kylo’s balcony, watching in silence as Rey stood shakily to her feet.  She stared down at the stone balcony below them, bending her knees and getting ready to jump.

“Rey,” Poe said, stilling her before she could let herself fall to the balcony. She turned to him, eyes questioning. “Are you sure you want to do this?”  

Before now, Rey would have said no.  But now, standing here, she stared down at the fragrant red flowers and the rainbows of other blooms all around the maze of hedges, and she knew.  She knew without a doubt that this was something she had to do. This was something she  _ needed _ to do.  

She couldn't have this nagging guilt in her chest anymore.  

“I’m sure,” she told him with a soft, nervous smile.  He nodded to her and turned away.

Rey let herself drop, falling onto the stone on her hands and knees.  

“Whistle when you need me,” Poe said, turning his ship to descend from above Kylo’s balcony and down into the palace gardens.  He didn’t wait for Rey to respond.  

Rey entered Kylo Ren’s room slowly, tentatively.  She wasn’t sure what to expect from him.  

Kylo wasn’t in his room when she arrived.  She hoped that meant that neither were Hux and Snoke.  Rey walked through the clouds of curtains and sat on the edge of the large fountain located in the center of his bedroom.  She waited for him to return.  

She listened to the flow of the water, touching the surface and watching as it rippled outward from her fingertips.  The water was cold to her touch, and it made her heart pound loudly in remembrance.  She pulled her hand back quickly, taking a deep shaky breath to calm herself. She hastily wiped her wet fingers on her sash to rid herself of the sensation.

The cold lingered on her fingertips like a brand.  

Behind her, the door creaked open, and despite herself, she jumped at the sound.  She turned her head to look, falling silent when she saw him.  His back was turned to her, as he slammed his door shut in someone’s face.  The gesture made her smile, despite it being cruel. 

He turned around slowly with a loud sigh, pressing his back to the cool wood of the door.  Rey took him in.  His eyes were closed, his forehead creased in frustration, one of his hands reaching up to pinch the bridge of his nose.  She liked him like this, she decided.  He looked so human, and not at all like the monster everyone believed him to be.  

She watched him and waited in silence, not wanting the moment to end.  

He raked his fingers through his hair and straightened up against the door.  Another sigh and a groan escaped his lips before he pushed off the wood and into the room.  Rey braced herself. 

When he opened his eyes, a strange look passed over his features.  He looked confused, angry, relieved, and surprised all at once.

“Rey,” he said in awe of her.  

Rey swallowed and smiled nervously at him, moving her hand up to give a small wave. 

“Kylo,” she responded, standing up and making her way towards him.  He stood still, watching her approach distrustfully. She moved slowly, giving him ample time to run if he needed.  

The moment she got close enough to him, he invaded her space.  He crushed her body against his in a tight embrace.  Rey yelped in surprise, trapped against him.  His face was in her hair, his lips finding her throat.

“I thought you left,” he whispered, yanking her hair free of her buns before she could stop him.  He raked his fingers through her hair, gripping the hairs on the base of her skull and pulling her head back.  

“I wouldn’t have done that,” she whispered, even though that was exactly what she had been doing when Hux, Phasma, and Snoke had discovered her outside of the palace.  

He pressed his mouth to hers, kissing her with an urgency that made Rey’s toes curl.  She reached her hands up and wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling him closer as she had that night in the garden.  

“Where did you go?” he asked when he pulled away. “You’ve been gone nearly a month.”

Rey’s heart pounded.

“Kylo, there’s something I need to tell you,” she whispered, her hands against his chest to push him away.   

He looked down at her then, eyes raking over her body.  His stare was hard and judgemental.  She felt uncomfortable beneath his scrutiny.

“Hux was right, wasn’t he?” he asked, voice low.

“Right about what?” Rey asked, fear rising up in her throat.  What had Hux told him about her to make Kylo look at her like that?

“That you’re nothing but a desert street rat.”

Rey paled, hands shaking.

“Kylo, what did that even matter?” Rey asked. “You’re not safe here, you couldn't stay—”

“Hux told me you would say something like that.”  Kylo’s expression darkened, almost as if something within him had snapped.

Rey could still taste his lips on hers, could still feel the heat from where his hands had gripped her body against his.  

“Kylo, I wouldn’t lie—” He cut her off with a look.  She realized she  _ had _ lied to him from the beginning, but this was different.  This time his life was in danger.  

“Not about  _ this _ ,” Rey finished, trying to get him to understand.

“Kylo  _ please _ ,” Rey begged, hoping to get through to him.  

“No,” he said. “You should have stayed away.  What did you even come back here for, Rey?” His eyes were wild, his tone filled with accusations.  Rey didn’t understand how it all went wrong so quickly.  The kiss that they had shared mere moments before now seemed like a distant memory.  

“ _ You _ ,” she told him. “I came back for  _ you _ . To save you.” 

Kylo laughed bitterly.

“As you can see, I don’t  _ need _ saving, Rey.”  He motioned to the palace around them.

“Hux and Snoke are going to  _ kill _ you, Kylo,” she said, her voice shrill.  

Kylo laughed again, his head thrown back. “Is that all you could come up with, Rey?   _ Really _ ?” 

Rey’s mouth opened and closed in surprise. “He’s  _ using _ you!” Rey whispered harshly, in shock.  

Kylo tensed at the anger in her tone. “Hux is who I’m supposed to marry.”  

Rey clenched her fists at her side and sighed.  There was no getting through to him. She could see that now.

“They tried to kill me, Kylo,” she said softly.  

He turned and looked at her, eyes intense, several emotions flashing at once. He remained silent, however, clenching and unclenching his fists.

“The first time, I tried to tell you.  When I overheard Snoke and Hux’s plan, they tried to kill me.  They wanted to drown me in the oasis.  If Obi-Wan hadn’t been there with me to get help, I would have died.”

Kylo shook his head.

“You’re lying,” he accused.  Rey deflated next to him.  Leia had warned her that he might be too far gone to hear this.

“Oh Ben,” she said so softly she was sure he didn’t hear her.  She watched him clench his fists again, hands shaking.

“Hux told me you’re not even real royalty,” he said, his voice small, but filled with anger.  

“I can explain that, Kylo,” she said, reaching out to touch him.  

He jerked away from her, eyes narrowing into slits. “I trusted you.”

“Kylo.” Her voice is soft, trying desperately not to upset him further. “You have to understand, Obi-Wan was dying, it was the only way to get close to you, I —“

He finally roared, his temper exploding around them.  “I don’t care!”

Rey flinched when several objects flew into a nearby wall.  Kylo didn’t appear to notice any loss in his control. She should have been surprised, she supposed, upon seeing him use this sort of magic in front of her.  But a part of her had already known, almost as if she had been able to sense it, the same way Snoke had sensed her.  

“Stop,” she warned him, voice low and dangerous.

He ignored her.  His voice rose again, filled with accusations. “I trusted you, Rey.  You let me trust you.  But now, I know you’re a liar.  How can I believe you about Hux and Snoke? How? When you’ve lied to my face for months!”

Any louder and he would alert the guards outside his door to her presence.

She growled softly, gripping his collar and pulling him to her.  She was in his face now, so close she could feel his breath on her cheek.  His eyes flashed with dangerous emotions as she looked at him.

“You and Hux deserve each other,” she said, voice filled with malice.  She half expected Kylo to back down, to deflate in her grip.  He didn’t.

“Guards!” he shrieked and she released him as if she had been burned.

The guards entered the room almost immediately, and Rey rushed outside to his balcony.

“No one can save you now!” she screamed at him, a pained expression on her face. Then she jumped over the edge, whistling loudly for Poe in the hopes that he could get to her in time, despite already being airborne.

“Rey!” he called after her, before he could stop himself, rushing to the balcony to see her land hard on a flat metal ship with someone he had never seen before at the wheel. He watched them fly away, over the palace and back out into the open desert.  He ignored the ache in his chest when she finally disappeared from his sight.


	10. One Jump Ahead

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Get it? Because last chapter Rey jumps off of a balcony? Also Phasma might get what's coming to her. Also impending war. So. Let's get started.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **WARNING. MAJOR CHARACTER DEATH THIS CHAPTER.**

**“We plan to attack in three days time,”** Leia told Rey, “The day of the wedding.  I won’t let my son be murdered by these degenerates because of his own stupidity.”  

Rey nodded in acknowledgement, but didn’t say anything.  She had been silent since she and Poe came back from the palace, and her friends were worried about her.  

“We’ll take down Snoke,” Leia told her, placing a hand on Rey’s shoulder, trying to reassure her., “I promise you that, Rey.”

Rey didn’t even look at her, lost in her own thoughts.  She couldn’t believe Kylo had called the guards on her.  Or maybe she could.  It didn’t seem so impossible after what he had done to her in the Cave of Wonders.

But either he didn’t remember her from the cave, or he just never brought it up.   It bothered her to think he had never recognized her from that night.  She didn’t think his view could have been that obstructed by his hood, considering he seemed to be incredibly efficient at dueling with her over the lamp.  He had to have been able to see her.

“Rey?” Finn asked from the doorway over her hospital room.  She turned her head just slightly to look at him.  She hadn’t seen him since their fight earlier in the day.

He was here to tell her “I told you so,” no doubt.  She watched him, waiting.  

“I…” he started, sighing before he continued. “Rey…” He sighed again, approaching her bedside and gripping the sheets on her mattress.  

Rey watched him, waiting for the other shoe to drop.  She knew what she had done was stupid, but she had to try.  There was no excuse for doing what she did and then not giving General Organa or Poe a choice other than to participate in her scheme.  In Finn’s eyes, she was certain she was the most despicable person on the planet right now.

“Please don’t…” Finn groaned, pulling her into a quick hug, pressing a kiss to her hair. “Don’t scare me like that again!”

He pulled away and stared down at her with wide eyes.  

“Poe told me everything, Rey.  Once he got back with you he found Obi-Wan and me and told us what happened.  I should have listened to you, but I was so caught up in being worried about what happened at the palace.  You almost died,” he stopped to take a breath and stared pointedly at her. “I didn’t want you to go out there again.  And now to have something like this happen.  I don’t like seeing you unhappy, Rey.”

“I know,” she said softly.

Finn pulled her into another quick hug and sighed.  

“And you better apologize to Obi-Wan,” he said against her ear, “He’s very upset that you called him an old man.”

“He is an old man,” Rey muttered against Finn’s cheek.  

“I know,” Finn chuckled. “But he’s really angry.”

“Fine,” Rey said with a short laugh. “Where is he anyways?”

“Catching up with Leia,” Finn responded, finally pulling away and sliding into the chair next to her bed.  A companionable silence fell over both of them, but Rey was still restless.  

Her thoughts kept going back to Kylo.  What would happen when Hux found out she had been there?  That she had returned from the watery grave to which he had sentenced her? 

*****

Seeing Rey again like that gave Kylo a severe sense of deja vu.  He couldn’t quite place it, but he was sure he had seen her somewhere before,  almost like it was a dream.  

Thinking about it made him uneasy.  It made his head pound and his mouth dry.  But he knew he remembered her from somewhere other than her stay as a princess here at the palace.

He remembered her in those clothes, her hair pulled into three buns at the back of her head.  He never saw her dressed like that here, and never with that hairstyle.  

“So that desert rat returned?” Hux asked, entering Kylo’s quarters without even a knock to signal his presence.  

“She did,” Kylo responded nonchalantly.  

“What did she tell you?” Hux asked.  

“Nothing.I called for my guards the moment she arrived.  I want nothing to do with her.” A half truth, he knew, but he couldn’t have turned her away.  She had left him, yes, but she had been his most promising suitor.  The beautiful woman from Coruscant that would prevent him from having to marry Hux.  The man was brash, and about as warm as the night.

Rey had been so different.

“Good,” Hux said. 

He continued to linger in Kylo’s room.  Waiting to tell Kylo something, he could tell.  

“What else?” Kylo asked, prompting Hux to continue their conversation.

“We’ve moved the wedding up,” Hux responded. “Snoke and I.  We want to have it tomorrow.”

Kylo’s heart pounded, dread filling his stomach.  Why would they bother moving the wedding up again?  There were only a few days left. 

“Fine,” Kylo said without protest.  

Hux nodded, seemingly satisfied with Kylo’s answer. Then he took his leave.  

Kylo relaxed significantly in his absence.  He wasn’t sure how he was going to make it through marriage with this man, when he could hardly stomach to be around him for longer than an instant.  He had never shared anything with Hux, had never even kissed him.

There was nothing romantic about their relationship.  All that was there between them was an unquantifiable amount of intense loathing.  Maybe Rey was right. Moving the date of their wedding closer was suspicious.  Especially since they were doing it right after Rey’s impromptu visit with him.  Something was wrong.

He sighed, swallowing down his paranoia.  He shouldn’t be thinking like this.  He shouldn’t be letting Rey get to him.  She had  _ left _ him.  Just like all the others before her.  

*****

The morning of his wedding dawned quickly,  more quickly than he would have liked.   

The guard retrieved him in the afternoon.  His servants had spent the entire morning getting him ready.  Washing his hair, covering him in sweet oils, laying out his simple black dress clothes.  

He walked to his wedding as though he was walking to his death.

He very well could be, if Rey’s accusations held any merit.  

Hux waited at the altar when he came to the aisle.  The room around them was filled with dignitaries.  They were friends of Hux and Snoke, people he didn’t even know.  

There was not a single person that he invited in that room.  

Hux didn’t look at all happy to see him as he stood there, staring down the aisle at who was  soon to be his husband.  

Everything about this situation seemed wrong.  But still, Kylo walked.  He walked down the aisle, leading himself into yet another unwanted thing.  Pushing him towards a life he no longer wanted for himself.

If Hux wasn’t going to kill him, this marriage would lead him to a metaphorical death nonetheless.  

The officiant started the ceremony and a hush settled over the crowd of onlookers.  Kylo looked anywhere but at Hux or the officiant.  He stared instead at the candle between them.

They were supposed to light that flame to signal an undying, unyielding love.  The thought made him feel sick.  

But he knew what he was getting himself into when he agreed to this marriage.  

When Hux kissed him at the altar, it was their first kiss, and quite probably their last.  Hux’s mouth was cold on his, and the kiss was short, awkward, and chaste.

Still, the crowd clapped as  if something significant had happened.  As if something worth  _ celebrating _ had transpired before them.  

It was then that Kylo knew, that this was how something died.  With thunderous applause.  

Hux lead him down the aisle and out of the temple.  People threw white flower petals at them and offered their sincere congratulations.  Kylo couldn’t look any of them in the eye.  

Hux graciously accepted every wish for their long and prosperous relationship .  Kylo may well have not even been there.  His thoughts were light years away from these people and this situation.  

He had gotten a taste of the light and he had squandered it.  

He wouldn’t get another chance.  Not with her.

*****

When they were alone later, Hux admonished him for not thanking the hundreds of strangers that had wished them luck in the wake of their vows.  

He hadn’t seen the point.  He wasn’t here to make Hux happy.  He wasn’t even here to make himself happy.  

As a newlywed couple, he and Hux would share a bed chamber for the first time.  It had been made up and furnished by the servants when they began preparations for the wedding.

Unlike his previous quarters, this one didn’t have a balcony overlooking the gardens.  Hux insisted, claiming the fragrance of the flowers gave him terrible migraines.  Kylo doubted that was true, but he allowed it.

He basically allowed everything.  His wedding was something that happened to him, not an important personal milestone.  His  _ life _ was something that happened to him.  He had no choices, no autonomy.  And he didn’t realize it until now.  How had he never realized until now?

He stared at the balcony overlooking the desert, watching the sun set over the horizon when a glint of metal caught his eye.  Kylo turned his head over his shoulder, a small blade in Hux’s hand catching the light of the setting sun.

Rey had been right.  She had been telling the truth.  His heart hammered in his chest and his hands twitched upwards to disarm the man.  

Instead, Hux brought the knife down to a plate, slicing some soft white cheese.  Kylo felt foolish immediately.  

Hux offered him the cheese, but he didn’t take it.  His stomach didn’t feel well enough to hold anything down.  He was much too anxious and filled with accusations.

“As you wish,” Hux said, popping the soft white cheese into his own mouth.  Kylo turned his back on the other man again, padding to their new bed and sitting on the edge of it.

After today, he felt exhausted.  He didn’t care about what was expected of him on this night.  He just wanted to sleep now.  Sleep and pretend that none of this ever happened.  

He hoped that tonight he’d dream of her.

Following his lead, Hux climbed into bed as well.  Kylo tried to bite back his disgusted shiver when Hux ran his hands through Kylo’s hair and down to his shoulders and back.  

The unspoken expectations hung in the air between them.  

Kylo made no move to initiate anything. Instead he tried to lay down, his back to Hux, but the other man stopped him.  He knew this wouldn’t go down between them without a fight.  Hux’s natural state of being was trying to ignite some sort of power struggle between the two of them.

But that was it, there was no power struggle.  Kylo was supposed to have all the power, and Hux was supposed to have none.  

“You are  _ expected _ to-” Hux began, but Kylo cut him off.

“I should not be  _ expected _ to do anything like that,” Kylo hissed. “This is a marriage of convenience. It’s time you learned what that means.”

Hux clicked his tongue and sat back on the bed, looking equal parts disappointed and relieved.  

“Oh, I know what it means,” Hux said, his voice soft and sinister.  Kylo tried to turn his head over his shoulder to look at him, to see what his remark meant.  

Then, without warning, a thin black cord wrapped around his throat.  Kylo choked under the force of it snapping closed on his airway.  He made pathetic surprised noises, gasping for air.  

“Hux,” he hissed, his breath dying in his throat.  He was being suffocated, strangled.  He clawed at the cord around his throat, at Hux’s hands where they sat at the base of his neck, at Hux’s body behind him.  Nothing changed.  Nothing made it better.

He could feel his lungs screaming, burning for air.  He fought harder, a last-ditch effort to be free of the cord around his throat.  

“Finally,” Hux whispered when he felt him fading,  Kylo beginning to go lax against him. “You will die.  And I will be sultan.” 

Kylo’s lips were turning blue, his eyes wide and unblinking.  The cord had already left a mark on his throat, digging into the flesh and burning as it constricted his airway.  

His eyelids fluttered, his mouth open wide in a silent scream.  His lungs were burning like fire, begging for oxygen.  

“I tried to kill your pretty little whore, too,” Hux said against the shell of his ear, “But someone came to rescue her.  No one is coming to rescue you.”

Kylo’s vision went white, burning around the edges of his eyes.  He felt a stir of memories coming free from his past, flashing through his head until he followed them through to the end, a light burning bright and red in his vision.

He reached for it, the heat licking and scorching his skin.  It made him feel savage, like a wild animal far beyond control.  He let go, let himself fall into the rage, the injustice of all of this.  

He could remember.  He knew who he was, what he was.  He had been manipulated and he had allowed it.  It would no longer continue.  Not while he could still struggle, could still feel the sharp bite of the cord against his throat.  

Then it snapped, the cord breaking by the sheer force of his will.  An understanding settled over him,  an epiphany so profound that it terrified him.  He breathed in, sucking air into his lungs.  He had never loved the taste of oxygen on his tongue more than he did now.

“ **Enough** !” Kylo roared, sucking another deep breath into his lungs.  His voice was hoarse, his eyes coming back into focus.  

Hux looked terrified.

He held the two ends of the broken cord in his hands.  Kylo stared down at him like a beast possessed.  His eyes narrowed, teeth bared, body crouched as if ready to strike any moment.  

“Ky-Kylo,” Hux said, dropping the cord to the bed spread, “be reasonable…”

Kylo laughed, a harsh, guttural sound that made Hux wince.  Kylo Ren was far past reasonable.  

“You tried to  _ murder _ me,” Kylo accused, his voice low and dangerous.  His throat burned with every word, every breath.  

“I-I was only following orders,” Hux said, clamoring backwards on the bed.  Kylo crawled over the mattress after him.  

He said nothing in response to Hux’s excuse.  There was no need for words, not anymore.  He had been willing to give Hux the benefit of doubt.  Yet, here he was, his throat raw, lungs heaving, neck stained with the mark of an object used to strangle him.  

Hux moved further away, trying to find a way off of the bed.  Kylo reached out, large hand gripping Hux’s thigh and dragging him back across the mattress to him.  Hux fought him, straining underneath Kylo’s muscles and superior training.  

Kylo mounted him, spreading his legs over Hux’s thighs and sitting just below his waist.  

“You tried to murder Rey,” Kylo said, half-mad by the time his hands were on Hux’s throat.  

“But she’s not dead, she’s not-”  Hux’s voice cut off with a loud choking noise.  Kylo held his throat, gripping it so tightly his muscles strained from the effort.  

Hux’s eyes nearly bugged out of his head.  His hands clawed and scratched at Kylo’s arms.  His legs kicked wildly, but Kylo couldn't even see him.  

He felt Hux’s windpipe break under his hands, his throat turning a sickening shade of purple.  Hux made a pathetic noise, his legs going straight beneath him.  His eyes were still wide open, his lips working to form words.  No sound came out.  

“No one needed to rescue me,” Kylo whispered, watching the light fade slowly out of Hux’s eyes. “I can take care of myself.”

He knew the moment Hux died, felt it in the air around him.  The light vanished from his still open eyes.  

Kylo couldn't bring himself to feel any remorse.  

He stared at the body for a long time, waiting for the guilt to wash over him.  He had killed his own husband on their wedding night.  The guilt never came. Instead he found himself feeling lighter, free.

The thought confused him.  He’d just taken someone’s life.  Someone he’d known for most of his life, his  _ husband _ .  He should at least feel  _ something _ .  But all that was there was a sense that his burden was gone.  

The thought made him feel slightly guilty.  But not enough for him to want to take it back.

Hux had been a menace to society.  He had committed countless acts of murder and debauchery under the “orders” of Supreme Advisor Snoke.  That man had power over nearly everyone in the palace.  

Kylo turned, facing the balcony of his new bedchamber, watching the red curtains billow inwards in the wind.  

Snoke was a menace as well.

*****

“Supreme Advisor,” Phasma said, her voice cool and monotonous. “I have news.”

Snoke turned to face her, awaiting the news that Kylo Ren had been slain, and their plan was now ready for the next step.

“Go on, Captain,” Snoke responded when she stood there for too long in silence.  Phasma swallowed hard and looked askance.  

“Advisor Hux,” Phasma paused again, her face paling before she could finish her words, “is dead.”

“Hux is dead?” Snoke asked.

“Yes, sir,” Phasma responded. “I found him in their quarters, sir.  He had been strangled.  His windpipe was broken.”

“Hux is  _ dead _ ?” Snoke repeated, voice rising.  Hux had  _ failed _ him  again.  First with the girl, and now with Kylo Ren.  Could the man truly do nothing for himself?  

“Yes, sir,” Phasma repeated.

“And where is Kylo Ren?” Snoke asked.

“He escaped, sir,” Phasma informed him. “He fled the scene before anyone discovered Hux’s body.  From the looks of it, he’s been dead for a few hours now.  It’s likely he was murdered mere moments after the wedding, sir.”

“He  _ escaped _ ?” Snoke asked, voice low and dark.  

“Yes, sir,” Phasma responded, twitching slightly when Snoke pushed a nearby table to the ground, sending the artwork atop it shattering onto the marble floor.  

“I want you to  _ find _ Kylo Ren and  _ bring _ him to me, Captain,” Snoke growled, gnarled and weathered hand gripping his staff as he commanded her. “I want you to bring him to me  _ alive _ .  And you will  _ not _ fail me, is that clear?”  

“Crystal clear, sir,” Phasma said, her voice robotic, her eyes locked on his staff.  

“Excellent,” Snoke responded, “Go now.”

Phasma got to her feet from where she knelt on the floor before her leader.  Then she stalked quickly towards the doorway to find Kylo Ren at any cost.

“Oh, and Phasma,” Snoke began, she turned over her shoulder to look at him. “If you fail me, I  _ will _ kill you.  Is that understood?”

“Yes, Supreme Advisor,” Phasma said. “That is understood.”  She hadn’t expected any other outcome.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> End of Part 3. Part 4 continues Monday or Tuesday September 26 or 27th.


	11. Kylo Runs Away

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kylo runs away from his problems and ends up in the desert. Rey and Kylo are reunited. The resistance marches on the palace.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry I've been gone! I had pneumonia so basically for a week all I did was lay in bed coughing up a lung and watching Naruto. I haven't worked on prompts or Millennium (I AM still working on Millennium) or anything. I know I've failed you, but here it is, the beginning of Part 4.
> 
> Also the e-book is gonna come out soon! I'm super hype for it. I'm listed first because Aladdin is the first alphabetically. Awesome, right?

Kylo didn’t know where he was going; he was chasing a  _ feeling _ through the desert like a madman.  He felt a pulse, a constant pull, pushing him to continue on in this direction.  

His speeder kicked up sand and debris as he sped past outpost after outpost until they were all behind him.  Then there was nothing but desert, and he knew he was lost.

All of the great machines were long gone. This part of the desert was devoid of them, and it made Kylo long for their constant, comforting presence on the other side of Jakku.  Now, all he could see for miles was endless swirling sands and the last dying embers of the setting sun.  

It was dark and cold when he stopped, setting up a makeshift camp.   He fell asleep pressed against the warm engine of the speeder but awoke shivering in the middle of the night once the machine cooled down.

He couldn’t sleep after that.  Instead he focused on feeling the pulse, tugging at the strands of it until it told him what direction to go in.  He was not close, but he was not far either.  It was possible he could get there just beyond first light.  Even if he didn’t exactly know where  _ there _ was.

Kylo sped off through the sand before the first hint of sunlight was over the horizon.  He had no doubt that once Phasma and Snoke discovered Hux’s body, they’d come after him.  He wouldn’t make it easy for them to follow.  

He left  no clear path, no clues,  _ nothing _ .  He even spent a few hours creating false trails for them to follow.  Something that would perhaps keep them busy for at least a day.  He knew Phasma wasn’t stupid, but he also knew that Snoke would push her to follow every lead.  

No stone left unturned.  

He was banking on that for his plan to work.  

The pulse grew stronger the closer he got to wherever he was to end up.  Before long, it was loud and bright in his head, and the sun had just barely found its place in the sky.  

The desert around him looked empty, despite the strange, loud pulse in his head.  It breathed in him, telling him without a doubt  _ you are here, this is where you need to be _ .  But there was nothing to see; the desert was devoid of life, of any structures.

He waited for hours, watching the day go by.  High noon sunlight burned his skin.  He watched as the sun slipped the opposite way and died at the edge of the horizon.  

The night was cold, but quiet.  There was no one here to find him.  He started his speeder, warming it up and huddling next to it.  It did nothing to stave off the cold of the desert that had already settled into his bones.  

He spent the second night shivering uncontrollably.  He never slept.  He tried, but the cold made it impossible.  Even under several layers of clothing, he couldn't find it in himself to sleep.  

The sun dawned again, and the pulse in his head was still as loud and bright as it was the previous day.  Kylo was reluctant to move on from something that is so obviously his destination, his  _ destiny _ .  So, he stayed.  He watched the sunrise creep higher and higher in the sky, the same as yesterday.

High noon came again, and Kylo’s skin burned.  His throat ached, his mouth was dry.  There was no water here in the desert, and the sparse rations he brought with him were nearly gone.  He drank his water sparingly, despite the fire burning in his throat.  

Noon gave way to evening, then to night.  Another day of nothing, another day of trusting an instinct that so far had proven not to be correct.  

He was too tired not to sleep, despite the shivering.  So he slept until the sun shining against his eyelids startled him awake, until the heat began slowly roasting him inside of his heavy cloak.  

The sun was high in the sky, approaching noon.  His body baked, and his water was down to mere drops.  There was still nothing here in this part of the desert for him.  He needed to move to somewhere that had water.  

He’d been in the desert for almost three days.  His skin was tight, eyes burning, tongue so dry it was like ash.  He should have brought more supplies.  But at the time he needed to escape quickly to avoid capture,  to avoid getting caught with a corpse.  

He regretted it immensely.

He climbed back onto his speeder, mind made up to find water, when he felt a rumbling beneath his feet.  He watched in awe as the ground opened up before him, sand spilling over the lip of a large structure that rose out of the ground.  

If this was a mirage, it was the most elaborate one he’d ever seen.  It was more likely he was experiencing sunstroke as a result of being outside in the desert for two days with barely any protection from the elements.  Either way, he found the structure fascinating.  

People, vehicles, and flying machines spewed forth from the earth.  They were all heading directly towards him and all he could do was stand there.  It seemed strange; he didn’t completely understand why he hadn’t started moving.  

The sheer amount of people coming from the earth was startling.  They were in a formation, a line from one end of the rising structure to the other.  They couldn't see him yet, since he was still obstructed by the sand spilling over the sides of the rising roof. 

The pulse was so loud that it was ringing in his ears now.  He was right to come here, he was right to wait.  No matter how delusional he was right now, he could count on this being real.  He wasn’t sure how or why he could place his meager faith in a light that rang in his head, but he did.  

He waited patiently to discover the source.

*****

“General,” Poe began, “we’ve gotten word from the palace.  The royal wedding has been moved up.”

“Again?” Leia asked. “There’s only three days left until-”

“Yes ma’am,” Poe interrupted, “It’s been moved to  _ today _ .”  Leia’s gaze flicked up from the paperwork on her desk to where Poe stood looking worried in the doorway.  

“There’s no way we can mobilize all of the troops today,” Leia cursed. “There are still three squads out in the field preparing and there is still a squad next to the palace doing reconnaissance.”  Leia felt the strain building in her chest.  

“I know, General, I know,” he said, his voice soft as he worried his bottom lip.

“I know you know,” Leia said softly, “But…” She trailed off at the thought of Rey, and Poe nodded as though he understood where her thoughts were going.  

“Rey,” Poe finished for her.  Leia nodded and stared down at her desk.  

“So we don’t tell her,” Poe offered.  Leia shrugged her shoulders.  

“She'll find out anyway,” Leia told him. “She’ll be angry if we knew and didn’t tell her.”

“Then let her be angry when it comes to that,” Poe tried.

“We don’t want her to be angry at all, Dameron,” Leia said. “Emotions are dangerous for people like her.”

Poe looked conflicted for a moment before he sighed, giving in.

“Then we tell her,” Poe conceded.  Leia sighed and nodded her head.

“We tell her,” Leia repeated, her voice low and somber, “But not yet; I need some time.”  

“I just hope we have more time,” Poe said, worried Rey would find out about the wedding from someone else on base.  There weren’t many that knew, but there were a few of the soldiers who were prone to gossip.  

“I know,” Leia said, waving her hand to dismiss him. “That’s all for now, Dameron.  Go back to your friends.  And try to keep Rey out of trouble.”

“Yes ma’am,” Poe said, understanding that to mean that he make sure Rey didn’t find out from  _ anyone _ other than General Organa the status of Kylo Ren’s impending wedding to his advisor.

*****

Rey felt like she was suffocating.  She gasped for air in the dark, grabbing at her throat and trying to force the ghost fingers away from her throat.  

There was nothing there, she knew there was nothing there.  She had been through this every night since she woke up from her coma.  She hadn’t yet been able to escape her nightmares of drowning.  It was as if she was still at the bottom of that oasis, waiting to die and screaming at nothing.  

“Rey,” Finn said sleepily from the bed next to hers.  They had brought him a cot when he refused to leave her side after she woke up.  And for good reason, Rey woke like this every night.  The doctors told her it was common after trauma to experience episodes like this.  Rey didn’t find that thought very comforting.

“Are you having the nightmare again?”  Finn’s voice was soft, his face still pushed into the pillow, half asleep.  Rey tried to slow her breathing down, the choking feeling fading away.  Her skin felt hot, flushed with embarrassment and anger.  

“Go back to sleep, Finn,” she whispered, as calmly as her shaking voice would allow.  Finn didn’t answer, a soft snore escaping his lips.  Rey smiled and rolled away from him, settling on her other side and staring into the darkness of the room.  

Tomorrow was Kylo’s wedding.  Tomorrow, she and the Resistance troops would storm the castle and take back what Snoke stole all those years ago.  She was looking forward to it, but she could hardly sleep through the night.  

There was a noise in her head, a soft pulsing, like there was something she should know.  She’d felt it for the past few days almost non-stop.  It was the same feeling she got the first time she met Leia, but somehow different.  She didn’t know what this meant or how she should feel about it.  

She largely ignored it.  She had tried to bring it up with General Organa and Obi-Wan, but the two of them simply didn’t have enough time to address her issues.  Obi-Wan had found a purpose here, a real purpose, to aid the resistance against the palace and help General Organa.  Rey was happy for him, but she found herself missing being able to talk to him about strange power she had inside.  She still had so many questions.  

Tomorrow would be a new day.  

*****

By sunrise, once the troops were at their exits, everything was beginning to fall into place.  Poe and Leia had avoided telling Rey about the wedding being moved.  Neither of them even knew if Kylo Ren was still alive and the thought haunted both of them. Even Obi-Wan had picked up on it.  None of them could look at her or talk to her.  And for Poe, that even meant avoiding Finn.  Anything to prevent Rey from becoming a loose cannon.  For everyone’s sake, Leia found herself hoping that her son was alive.  She also found herself hoping that if he was dead, Rey wouldn't blame herself.  

The entrance rose, spilling sand over the edges and revealing the barren landscape of Jakku, the long empty desert province.  The sands here swallowed up the great mechanical beasts of old, devouring them until there was nothing left.  Now they served as a reminder, a warning to those who enter there that the sand could devour them as well.

Leia had used that to her advantage, and so had the people who built this base.  They were long gone now, but they lived on through their works, as the rebellion would live on through the Resistance.  

It felt like an eternity before the sand stopped falling, for the soldiers to be able to march across the desert.  They spent the time contemplating their mission, knowing that not all would survive, but they would be a part of a fight to restore justice and balance.  The corruption and hate of before would die with Snoke, birthing a new nation.

The soldiers marched forward, boots against the sand, vehicles lurching forward, engines whining in protest as their wheels fought to roll.  Leia was with them and Rey right next to her.  Everyone was silent as they ventured out, looking at the large expanse of desert stretching in front of them.  

They would finally win this war.  

*****

Rey could feel the pulse more profoundly out here in the desert.  It was high pitched out here, calling out to her, ringing in her ears.  She shook her head to get rid of the feeling, but it stuck with her.  

The further she walked out into the sand, the louder it got.  It wouldn't go away when she covered her ears.  She turned to look at Leia for guidance, her face contorted in pain.  But the general wasn’t looking at her, she stared straight ahead, her feet moving further from the base one step at a time.

They were not even thirty paces away when Leia stopped with a sharp gasp.  Rey turned to her again, wide eyed and desperate.  

Leia still wasn’t looking at her; her eyes locked on something just ahead:  a figure standing in black from head to toe, watching them in silence.  

When she saw him, her heart started pounding and she had to hold back a smile.  She felt a sense of relief wash over her, finally figuring out what the pull she’d felt these last few days had been.  

“Kylo!” she called, moving to run towards him.  Leia’s arm shot out, blocking Rey from moving.  Rey cried out in protest, shooting Leia a look of confusion.  Leia would not so much as glance in her direction.

Kylo’s head turned towards her, but they were still too far away for her to make out his expression.  

Rey pushed Leia’s hand away from her and started forward again.  Leia called out for her to stop, and so do Finn, Poe, and Obi-Wan.  

“Kylo,” she said again when she was close enough to see his face.  He looked tired and thirsty.  His skin and hair were dirty, his clothing coated in a layer of sand and sweat.  At his throat she saw an angry indentation, a bruise along the circumference of his neck, slashing through the centre.  

He said nothing, moving forward quickly and scooping her up into his arms as best he could in his condition.  Rey pushed him away gently when she felt his arms tremor.  

She dropped the pack on her back and pulled out a canteen filled with water and a meal bar   Kylo watched her warily, eyeing the items in her hand as if they may not be real.  

“Take them,” she told him, and he did.  

He drank the entire contents of her canteen and swallowed the meal bar nearly whole.  

“What happened to you?” she asked, fully aware that the entire Resistance was at her back, watching as she fed and cared for a murderer and a traitor.  She could almost feel their confusion and disappointment, and while she was under no impression that Kylo Ren was a  _ good _ or  _ just _ person, she did know that he’d made a mistake.  His being here now, seeking her out, was his acknowledgement of that fact.  

“Hux,” Kylo said, his voice hoarse.  Rey frowned at him, reaching up to touch the indentation on his throat.  He winced and shied away from her touch, trapping her hand in his before she could put too much pressure on the injury.  

“How did you get away?” she asked, not bothering to pull her hand away from him.  Their gazes locked on one another and Kylo swallowed, his adam’s apple bobbing up and down.  

“He’s dead,” Kylo said.  Rey’s eyes widened just a little bit at his confession, but she found herself thinking how this made the Resistance’s job that much easier.  

“Dead?” she asked, searching his eyes.

“I killed him,” Kylo confessed.  Rey nodded, looking away from him and down at the desert sand beneath his feet.  She was not disappointed in him, not in the least.  He did what he had to do in order to survive, and he killed the man who had tried to kill her.  

There was no sadness or mourning in her heart for Hux. He was dead, a casualty of the war.She felt nothing for him, but she did feel something for Kylo.  

“Are you alright?” she asked, meeting his gaze again.  

“Yes,” he told her, a far off, haunted look in his eyes.  Rey knew he had already come to terms with what he had done to Hux, but it appeared as though it had unearthed so much more within him for which he needed to feel remorse.  

She knew he was not alright.  His eyes gave everything away, as though they were spelling out every emotion that crossed his mind.  

“Rey?” Finn asked from behind her.  She turned, shooting him a look that made him falter.  He stood just a few feet away, watching them with a worried expression on his face.  Behind him stood the army, silent as the dead.  Everyone was staring, a thousand eyes on them as they stood in the desert, trying to make amends.  

“He’s in no condition to fight,” Rey said, addressing General Organa. “He needs medical assistance.”

The general nodded slowly, turning away to hide her face.  She wasn’t ready to address her son just yet; there was still too much left to do.  And now, she knew she had to leave Rey here at the base with him.  Rey, whose only mission when they got to the palace was to find him, and find him alive, had already done her job.  

“General?”  one of the high ranking officers asked. 

“March on, we still attack as planned.  I need to prepare a doctor to treat m-” She stopped then, shaking her head and walking further back into the underground base.  

“Come on.” Rey dragged Kylo through the crowd in the direction General Organa had gone.  The soldiers parted around them, giving them a wide berth.  Finn and Poe glared daggers at his back, but watched in silence as they lost Rey to him once again.  

Kylo said nothing, made no protest as Rey lead him underground and away from an army that was marching on the only home he had ever known.  He could not bring himself to care. He was numb to everything,  even to the thought of a thousand troops razing the palace to the ground.  

Rey said nothing as she walked him through windowless halls, filled with equipment that had long since been destroyed or outlawed in the rest of his world.  It was strange to see these things now. In the palace and surrounding countryside, there was  little technology, such as overhead lighting, mechanical fountains, and vehicles for their guard.  But this underground base seemed to have been built long before the war.  The machines and technology were well-equipped and protected.  Kylo felt as though he were in some sort of museum dedicated to the preservation of pre-war era technology.  It was breathtaking.  

Rey took him through a maze of hallways until they reached their destination,  a plain metal door leading into a stark, white room.  The room smelled like cleaning supplies and was so white it would have been blinding if Kylo had not spent the last two days outside in the desert sun.  Now his eyes seemed dim, not adjusting well to the lights underground.  

“I was so worried about you,” Rey said when they were finally alone.  He looked down at her with a frown on his face.  

“I should have listened to you, Rey,” he said, by way of apology.

“Yes, you should have,” she responded, eyeing him with her lips pursed in annoyance.  

He knew he should have listened to her, but he had let Hux’s words get in the way.  He let his own selfish agenda sway him until he would no longer believe her.  He had not been living his own life for a long time. He’d allowed his choices to be made for him. Rey had hurt him when she had fled the palace, but finding out that Hux had tried to have her killed, actually tried to drown her at the bottom of the Oasis, forced him to act.  

There was no excuse for what they did to her, and no excuse for him trying to bring down the entire Palace Guard on her head for trying to warn him of Hux and Snoke’s impending plan to kill him.  He was sorry for what he had done, and he felt remorse for his actions for the first time in a long time.  He just didn’t know how to tell her.  

“A doctor should be here soon,” Rey said, making her way towards the door to exit.  

“Stay,” Kylo said to her back.  Rey tensed at his words.  

“I’m not your servant, Kylo,” she said, but made no move to open the door, her hand twitching just above the handle as if she was waiting for him to say something else.  

“Please stay?” he asked, swallowing the feeling of sandpaper in his throat.  

“Better,” Rey responded, her hand falling to her side and turning to face him. “But they’re going to asked you to strip all your clothes off when they get here,” she said, her cheeks tinged slightly pink at the thought. “I’ll wait outside for that.”

Kylo wanted to tell her she didn’t have to, that he would rather her be with him the whole time.  She was the only person he knew he could trust, but he said nothing.  If the thought of seeing him undressed was shameful to her, he wouldn’t push the issue.  

Instead, he smiled shyly at her and stared down at the floor.  

They waited in awkward silence until the doctor came, neither of them saying what they needed to say.  


	12. Phasma's Hour

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter focuses on the resistance and Phasma.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Only 2 full chapters and an epilogue left. This has been wild.

The resistance marched on the palace. Leia didn’t think anything else could possibly go wrong.

She was incorrect on that point.  

They were not even out of Tatooine before they met Phasma and several of her troops in pursuit of Kylo Ren.  The guard was small, but efficient.  Their training was indisputably better than many of the men and women in Leia’s militia.  

The guard held their own against the Resistance, despite the numbers Leia’s troops had on them.  Leia was impressed by the way they fought, their reckless abandon, their intelligent strategy.  

She didn’t like what this meant for when they got to the palace and faced the guard there.  

Finn found her a few hours into their stand-off.  He looked concerned, his brow creased with worry.  Leia was meeting with the officers, trying to find the best strategy in order to take on the remaining Palace Guard.  

“They’re special ops,” Finn said when everyone turned to look at him. “These are the best of the best of the Palace Guard.”  

“How do you know this?” Leia asked after a few beats of silence pass.  

“I used to be one of them,” Finn said, “Or I was training to be.  I was there in Yavin 4 years ago when they slaughtered the entire province to take control away from the people there.”

Leia stared at him, her jaw going slack.  

Behind him, Finn heard footsteps approaching swiftly.  He turned quickly, hands up to try and defend himself.  He dropped his aggressive stance when he saw Poe standing there with a look of awe on his face.  

“That was  _ you  _ in Yavin 4?” Poe asked, his eyes shining with tears, the corners of his lips quirking upwards into a sad smile.  

“What was me?” Finn asked, confused.  Poe looked him over and laughed to himself, in awe.  

“I should have known,” Poe said, shaking his head and laughing again, “It was so obvious.”  

“What’s obvious?” Finn asked, almost afraid.  Poe slung his arms around Finn’s neck and hugged him.  Finn’s heart raced, his hands moving slowly, awkwardly to brush against Poe’s hips.

“You saved my life that day,” Poe whispered against Finn’s cheek, “You were so  _ young _ and you saved my life.”  

Finn’s eyes widened when he heard Poe’s confession.  Poe had been that scared boy, barely older than himself, whose parents had been murdered in the square by Captain Phasma.  

Poe pulled away just enough to look Finn in the eyes, tears spilling down his cheeks, despite the smile on his face.  

“You’re alive,” Poe said in awe. “After all this time, you’re alive.”  

Overwhelmed by emotion, Finn leaned forward to pull Poe back into his arms to give him the embrace he deserved.  Poe stopped him, placing his hands on either side of Finn’s face and pressing their mouths together in a short, chaste kiss.  

Finn stilled, his body almost rigid.  The moment Poe’s lips left his, he was acutely aware that they were not alone.  All around them were Resistance troops, and behind them stood the highest ranking officers.  

“Thank...you,” Finn said, his voice rising at the end, almost as if it were a question.  Poe bit the inside of his lip and winced.  He patted Finn on the shoulder and grimaced before slipping back into the fray.  Finn wanted to go hide somewhere and pretend none of this ever happened.

He didn’t know what to do.  Or how to react to what had just happened between them.  So he stood there, completely still and tried to pretend he didn’t exist.  

It didn’t work.

“Finn?” Leia asked from behind him and he turned to face her.  He couldn't even meet her eyes.

“Yes, ma’am?” he asked, voice soft and shaky.  

“The special forces?”  Leia asked, trying to turn the conversation back to Finn’s insider knowledge.  

“Yes, of course,” Finn responded, returning to the task at hand, and hoping the distraction would prevent him from feeling the full force of his embarrassing blunder with Poe.

It wasn’t as though the moment between them had been unwanted, but it had been so  _ public _ and out in the open that Finn didn’t know how to handle it.  In the palace, everything had been secretive.  Relationships were forbidden, experimentation was forbidden, any personal moment he had shared with anyone had been kept behind closed doors. Even so, his relationship with Poe had never been a platonic one.  Ever since he and Rey had brought him back from The Cave of Wonders, there had been lingering stares and stolen touches, even once in front of Rey. 

He should have expected this, but something so public concerned him, embarrassed him.  He had no idea how to convey those emotions to Poe without hurting the other man further.  He would leave it alone, let Poe move on without adding so much strain to their relationship.

“They aren’t going to fall for simple tactics,” Finn told them.

“What would you suggest?” Leia asked, sensing Finn’s discomfort and setting him to work without issue.

For the first time in a long time, Finn felt useful.  

*****

Finn had proven to be an asset to the Resistance, earning them the upper hand in the battle they now faced in the desert.  Finn knew a great many of the Palace Guards’ weaknesses.  He had been trained to be in special operations just like they were.  

And all of them had been trained by Captain Phasma herself.  

Finn put himself in harms’ way more times than Leia and Poe cared to count.  Poe fought alongside him, trying to block him from the never ending torrent of blaster shots, as if he needed protection.  

Finn didn’t need protecting.  He needed to be protecting everyone else.  He’d experienced those monsters before, more than once in his lifetime.  He’d sparred with most of them, learned their quirks, their shooting styles, their secrets.  

“FN-2187,” a cool voice said, calling his attention to Captain Phasma.  She stood tall, taller than he remembered, with her blaster aimed directly at him.  Her troops scattered across the desert around her, taken out by his intel. Phasma must be running low if she was finally making her appearance.  

“Captain Phasma,” Finn said, eyeing the blaster in her hand.  He remembered it from training, remembered that it was overpowered, that one shot, no matter where it hit, was lethal.  He also remembered that Phasma never missed her mark.  

“I’ve waited a long time for this moment,” she told him.  Finn didn’t question how she knew it was him after seven years, and he didn’t find it at all surprising.  

He said nothing to her, watching without fear as her finger found the trigger.  If he had to die, dying in battle was something he was trained to do.  Before everything else, he was a  _ soldier _ .

He let his eyes close, hearing her gun power up as she cocked it.  The soft whirring noise of the metal heating up, the plasma boiling, ready to destroy him.  

The shot never came. Instead, he heard a woosh and a startled gasp.  He opened his eyes the moment he heard it, expecting Rey and Kylo Ren to be there amongst them.  

Instead he saw an old man.   _ The _ old man, the same one that approached Rey and him about retrieving the lamp from the Cave of Wonders.  He was standing over Phasma now, staring down at her with a sword of green light in his hand.  Phasma clutched her arm, biting her tongue to keep herself from screaming at the pain.  

“Hello again, Finn,” the man said, his face solemn.  

“You,” Finn said in surprise, watching as the old man disarmed Phasma with a flick of his wrist.  Finn’s eyes widened in understanding - the old man had the same sort of power as Rey and Obi-Wan.  

Phasma hissed in pain when her blaster was flung away, hitting the sand on the other end of the field.  Without their leader, the team seemed to halt, finally understanding that they were outmaneuvered.  

“Surrender,” Leia commanded when the troops faltered.  They didn’t. They rallied to try and fight, to try and prevent their leader from being slain by the old man with the sword of light.  

The Resistance fought back, guns ready, already aimed.  

There were casualties on both sides, but Phasma’s squad fell beneath their feet.  Her special operations squad was defeated by a common militia, one by one.  

They took Phasma prisoner. She was injured, her left arm severed from the elbow down, a warning from the old man, in lieu of killing her. With her entire troop dead, she had no choice.  She came quietly, knowing death awaited her no matter what she decided.  


	13. To Be Free

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kylo and Rey explore their relationship a little further. NSFW this chapter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Smut this chapter y'all.

Kylo’s examination proved to be useless.  The doctor didn’t tell him any more than he already knew.  He was dehydrated, slightly malnourished, and had suffered trauma due to strangulation.  He needed time to heal, to regain his strength.

Time he didn’t have.  

He didn’t plan on staying here long. He needed to return to the palace and finish what he started.  He needed to rid Jakku of Supreme Advisor Snoke before it was too late.  He had been a poison to this land for far too long and Kylo was tired of it.  

If he stalled for much longer, the Resistance would beat him to the palace. They wouldn’t know what to expect.  Snoke was stronger than any of them knew.  He had been performing strange rituals as of late, rituals for which he required Kylo to be present. He couldn’t remember much beyond shapes and the flickering of candles and red smoke.  

However, he did know that the rituals made him weak.  Afterwards he felt drained, emotionally and physically.  He was overcome by an exhaustion he had never felt before.  And it made Snoke stronger, more capable of sorcery, and much more dangerous.  

Rey slipped back into the room when the doctor left.  

“There’s a bathing pool over there,” Rey said, pointing to the far corner of the room. “First one I’ve ever seen like it.”

Kylo slid off the bed, the flimsy gown barely covering him.  Rey blushed and turned away, staring at anything but his bare thighs.  

“Thank you,” he said softly, heading into the room that housed the bathing pool.  

Rey stood in silence, still staring at the wall lest Kylo return and she find her last shred of resolve sliced away by her overwhelming need to touch him.  

*****

He returned clean and less clothed than before.  He had removed the gown in favor of slinging a soft cloth across his hips.  Rey could hardly breathe when she saw him, his chest and waist bare, his thighs barely covered by the cloth.  

He was  _ gorgeous _ .  His wet black hair stuck to his face, his muscles worked as he reached up and dried it off with another, smaller cloth he brought with him. Several drops of water cascaded over his chest and stomach, stopping to be absorbed by the cloth when they reached his groin.  

Rey swallowed hard.  

“I-I should see if I can get you some cl-clothes,” Rey stuttered, standing up from the chair she had settled in when he left to bathe.  He chuckled and looked over at her.  

“Who said I needed clothes?” he asked, his voice smooth and even.  Rey felt the blood rush to her cheeks; she felt dizzy from the sudden heat in her face.

Kylo simply smiled innocently at her.  Approaching her quickly, he closed the distance between them.

“I did,” Rey said, making her way towards the door, face still flushed a deep burgundy.  

Kylo was close enough now that he could reach out and grab her.  His hand found her elbow in an instant, dragging her back over to him.  

“You don’t have to go,” he told her, “I can cover up if you want me to.”  He watched her face, his eyes pleading.  He didn’t want to be alone here; he didn’t want to be without her for another instant. 

He wanted to remember her like this before he went back to the palace to face Snoke,something he should have done before he ever tried to seek her out.  But he was a coward; he wanted peace before he faced the inevitability of death.  And he wanted to find his peace in her.  

“You don’t have to,” Rey said, surprising herself. “I’ll stay.”  She couldn’t leave him, not when he was looking at her with his eyes filled with turbulent emotions.  He had been so much more reserved at the palace, but now Rey could see him for what he truly was:  _ terrified _ .  

Kylo pressed her against his chest, leaning down and kissing the top of her head.  Rey sighed, breathing in the scent of the standard Resistance soap that Kylo had used.  

It was strange to feel his bare chest beneath her hands.  His skin was sticky and wet to the touch, soaking into her clothes.  He had hardly dried himself off at all, she realized.  Perhaps in his haste to return to the room where she awaited him.  

“I’m glad I found you,” he told her.  She smiled against his skin, pressing her lips to his shoulder.  

“I know,” she told him, kissing his skin again, her lips a soft whisper against his chest.  

“From the moment I saw you in the palace, I felt a connection to you,” he admitted. Rey thought she understood what he meant; it was the connection everyone that had magic felt towards everyone else with these powers. 

She said nothing, not wanting to make this less significant.  She didn’t want to make Kylo think she was denying his feelings or discounting the connection he felt to her.  She understood, she had felt it too.  

“We’ll have to help the Resistance soon,” he said, against her hair. “They won’t win without us, not against Snoke.”

Rey could feel the moment between them fading, and the war taking over.  Her disappointment was nearly palpable.  

“But right now,” Kylo continued, sensing her distress with his earlier confession. “All I want is to be here like this, with you.”  

Rey shook her head and glared at him pointedly.  His words were trite, but the meaning behind them made her stomach do flips.  For now, she could have him without thinking of the war in which they had somehow found themselves. 

Rey wasn’t sure who initiated the kiss, she only knew that it began.  His lips were on hers, their eyelids fluttering closed.  He  pressed her back onto the hospital bed, gripping her hips to lift her and place her onto the mattress so he could kiss her without having to bend down.

Rey made a soft moan of pleasure when he deepened the kiss, pulling her hair free from its bindings and tangling his fingers in it.  His other hand pulled her closer, long, clever fingers brushing against the small of her back.  

He kissed her like it was the last time he would ever do so.  

Rey pushed the thought out of her mind, her arms wrapping around Kylo’s neck, fingernails scraping through his still wet hair.  She moaned again when he angled his hips, pressing himself against her as he had weeks ago in the palace.

This time, Rey didn’t pull away from him.  She moved against him for more, wrapping her legs around his waist and pressing her feet into the backs of his thighs.  He sighed into her mouth and reached out with both hands, pulling the strap of leather from her waist and pushing away the swatch of fabric she wore over her common clothes.  

Rey tensed slightly against him, pulling away from his kiss to bury her face in his shoulder.  Kylo stopped immediately, letting the fabric pool around her waist on the bed.  Rey whined softly, pressing his hands back against her middle, letting his fingers brush against the pool of fabric.  

“It’s okay,” she said, her lips whispering across the skin of his throat. “I want you to.”

And she did, she wanted to feel her body bare against his.  She wanted to feel the heat of his skin on her own.  She wanted it more than almost anything else.  

She felt starved for him, starved for touches that felt like fire against her skin.  She  _ wanted _ this, wanted to feel like she was burning with desire.  

“Are you sure?” he asked, his lips pressed against her forehead.  

Rey tilted her head back, looking up at him, his face so close to hers.  She could say no if she wanted. They could leave and join the Resistance, aid them in their fight against the Palace Guard.  It would be easy, but it was not at all what she wanted.

“Yes,” Rey responded, meeting his gaze.  She hoped he could see her emotions reflected in her eyes like she could in his.  

The change in him was immediate, the concern reflected in his eyes turning to an animalistic hunger.  Rey could feel the air shift around them, the cool sterility of the hospital room replaced with electricity.  She felt goosebumps on her skin, the small hairs on her arms rising with anticipation.  

He kissed her again, grabbing her at her waist and pulling her close to him, as close as he physically could.  She arched herself up, intoxicated from the taste of him.  

His hands found the fabric at her waist, pulling it off and tossing it onto the floor.  She ran her fingers over the muscles in his abdomen, feeling them stretch and contract beneath her fingertips.  She felt the softness of his skin and she physically ached to be closer to him than she was even now.  

His hands were back on her waist, pulling her shirt from where she had it tucked into her leggings and touching her bare skin.  She shivered, the heat of his hands taking over her senses.  

His hands were so large they stretched over her abdomen, almost covering her entirely.  The places where his fingers didn’t reach feel empty.  She wanted to feel all of him pressed against her.  

He broke their kiss, and Rey whined, leaning her head up to catch his lips again as he pulled away.  Kylo chuckled against her mouth, angling his head away and capturing the soft skin of her neck in his teeth.  She gasped, overwhelmed by the feeling of him nipping and sucking at her throat.  Pleasure washed over her, her hands moving from his waist to tug at his hair.  

Kylo’s hands pushed higher, his fingers brushing the underside of her breasts.  Rey could feel the heat from his hands through the band that bound her chest, and she bit her tongue to suppress the embarrassing noise she made at the thought of him touching her there.  Kylo smirked against her throat, halting his ministrations for a moment to yank her shirt over her head.  

He stared at her then, looking at her body beneath his hands, eyes raking over her still clothed breasts.  Rey was panting now; watching him look at her like that left her wanting.  

His eyes locked with hers for a moment before he descended on her again, pressing kisses to her clavicle and chest.  He was determined to kiss and taste every bit of skin he exposed.  He pressed her backwards onto the bed, bidding her to lie down.  

Rey complied, leaning back and watching him.  He loomed over her, bending at the waist so that he could kiss the skin of her exposed stomach.  Rey felt a rush of heat and pleasure as he kissed her and she squeezed her thighs together with a soft whimper. 

Kylo sighed against her skin, pulling off her boots one at a time and tossing them behind him.  Then he knelt before her, forcing Rey to rise up on her elbows to watch him.  He rolled her socks down her legs slowly, pressing soft kisses against her calves, her ankles, the sides of her feet.  

Rey could hardly breathe, an uncomfortable ache settling between her thighs, fingernails digging into the cloth on the bed in desperation.  

Kylo pulled her hips to the edge of the small bed, dragging her down from the mattress to straddle his lap where he crouched on the floor.  Rey brought the blankets and bed clothes with her, dragging them to the floor before she could think to let go.  

Kylo kissed her again, his erection pressing insistently against her thigh.  She ground herself down against him, inclining her hips so she could feel him, hard and twitching against her.  He moaned into her mouth, thrusting his hips upwards and pressing himself against her again.  

It was too much and not enough at the same time.  Rey bit her bottom lip to stifle a gasp, and she heard him chuckle.  He pulled away from her, moving his hands upwards from her hips to brush against the cloth that bound her breasts again.  

He watched her, gauging her reaction as he untucked one end of the fabric and began to unbind her.  Rey’s heart quickened, her stomach doing somersaults.  His hands were like fire on her skin, burning through the fabric, consuming her with light, simple touches.  

Every brush of his thumb along her ribs caused a shiver of electricity to flow down her spine.  She couldn't even keep her eyes open; her skin was so aware of his touch it was almost painful.  She leaned back, shoulders connecting with the metal frame of the bed behind her.  The coolness of the metal bit into her skin, keeping her sane as he unraveled her.  

“Look at me, Rey,” he commanded when all that was holding the binding cloth to her skin were his hands.  She complied, opening her eyes.  She looked dazed, almost drunk with desire.  He let the cloth over her breasts fall to the floor at his feet.  

His jaw went slack when he looked at her, Adam’s apple working in his throat as he swallowed.  Her breasts were round and pointed, slightly lighter than the rest of her skin that had been tanned by the desert.  Her nipples pebbled with arousal.  

Rey blushed under his gaze, reaching her arms up to hide her breasts in embarrassment.  Kylo responded quickly, gripping her wrists and holding her arms down by her sides.  

“Don’t hide yourself from me,” Kylo said, leaning forward to press a kiss against her throat, “I want to see you.”  

Rey’s blush deepened and she tucked her chin to avoid his gaze.  Kylo nuzzled her cheek with his nose, pressing his lips against her jaw.  Rey sighed, tilting her head back and relaxing against the metal frame of the bed.  

Kylo leaned down, pressing his lips to the swell of her breasts.  His kisses were soft, tentative, almost experimental.  Rey moaned, her hands gripping his hair at the nape of his neck.  

Kylo’s cock twitched against her, brushing against the soft fabric of the cloth at his waist.  He ducked his head lower, bending himself and repositioning to take one of her nipples into his mouth.  Rey gasped and bucked at the sensation, a strangled sound escaping her throat.  He ran the edges of his teeth around its peak, and Rey nearly sobbed with pleasure.  He brought his hand up, brushing his thumb against the nipple his mouth wasn’t ravishing.  

Rey tensed against him, her whole body trembling.  The ache between her thighs throbbed with want.  She bucked, desperate for some friction.  Kylo gripped her hips and pressed his hands into the leggings at her hips, pushing them down, fabric bunching beneath his hands.  Rey’s breath caught, her heart pounding when she felt his hands run over the swell of her bare ass.  

He stopped when he could go no further. His lap blocked the path her leggings needed to take in order to come off.  Rey whined when he removed his hand from her, reaching up to pull the pillows off of the bed behind them and lowering Rey onto a nest of crumpled clothing, pillows, and bed clothes.  

She looked up at him, lips parted and swollen from kissing.  Her hair framed her face, sticking to her skin, and her eyes were almost wild.  

He gripped the waistband of her leggings again, face hovering just over her hips.  He pulled her leggings down slowly, pressing kisses to every inch of skin he exposed.  

Rey arched her back up, lifting her ass so he could pull her leggings down further.  He halted when he exposed her to him for the first time.  The heady scent of her arousal was almost overwhelming.  She was slick between her thighs, and he could taste her when he pressed quick kisses to the skin there, dragging her arousal lower with his mouth and chin when he kissed lower along her legs.  

Rey whined again.  He was so close to where she wanted him, but he kept moving lower,  pressing kisses to her body that only served to drive her insane.  

When he removed her leggings, she sighed in relief.  Her body was bare beneath him.  She leaned up on her elbows again to look at him, watching his face as he took all of her in.  She was not shy like she was earlier, not when his eyes exposed him so.  He looked at her with adoration, worshipping her body as if she were a goddess.  

It made her head feel light, a smile curling at the corners of her lips.  

She spread her legs for him, opening them slowly as he watched her.  His gaze lowered from the sight of her breasts to the expanse of her legs.  The air in the room was cold when it hit her, made worse by the slick between her thighs.  She shivered, reaching for him to come to her.  

He crawled forward, covering her body with his.  The bath cloth was still in the way, and Rey growled in frustration, sitting up and promptly removing it.  It fell to the floor in a heap along with their other clothes and Rey let her gaze devour him.  

It was Kylo’s turn to blush when he beheld the sight of Rey looking at him for the first time.  She bit her bottom lip, running her leg against his now bare thigh at the sight of him.  

Her gaze snapped back to his, beckoning him closer.  He shook his head at her, leaning down and pressing a soft kiss to her lips before he moved lower along her body again.  

Rey protested, but her words fell on deaf ears.  He settled his face between her thighs, pressing a hand to her lower abdomen to steady her before he licked her slowly, tasting her.  

The sound that came from Rey’s lips was a sound he had never heard.  It was half ecstasy, half pain, and Kylo wanted nothing more than to hear it again.  

“Wh-what are you doing?” she asked, her voice shaky, hands gripping at the fabric around her.  

Kylo didn’t answer, and instead he licked her again, pressing the flat of his tongue against her clit.  Rey bucked up against his mouth, but he held her steady with the hand on her waist.  

“Ky-lo,” she moaned, moving her hands over her head to grip at the metal railing of the bed behind them.  

He pressed his face against her, focusing on pleasuring her in earnest.  His tongue tasted her, licking her clean of the evidence of her arousal.  She unraveled beneath him, her muscles wound tight, her lips parted and begged for him to give her what she wanted. 

Still, he waited, pressing his tongue inside of her.  She gasped at the sensation, the walls of her entrance clenching around him.  He did it again and she nearly screamed, her head rolling back, mouth open as she stared at the ceiling.  

His thumb found her clit as he fucked her with his tongue, dipping in and out of her.  Her whole body was trembling, her legs spread wide, fingernails biting into his shoulder.  He was almost certain she was drawing blood as she left little half moon marks on his skin.  

But the look on her face was worth it.  The flush to her cheeks, the way her whole body shook beneath his tongue, her hair sticking to the sweat on her forehead and cheeks.  

She was close, he knew.  And he could see the disappointment in her face when he pulled his thumb away from her clit.  She tried to chase his hand with her own, crying out his name in protest.  

She didn’t get far.  

He replaced his thumb with his mouth, covering her swollen clit and sucking, flicking the tip of his tongue against her.  His fingers found her entrance, sliding inside of her.  She was tight around his fingers, pressing them together.  

He heard her head bump against the floor, her body arching up, a cry of surprise escaping her lips.  Her fingernails bit into the skin of his arm as he held her to the floor to keep from bucking up into his face.  

She clenched around him, gripping the skin on his arm harder with her hands, body shaking.  She screamed when she came, tilting her head back, her body dropping to the floor.  

He worked her through her orgasm until she was panting, shoving his hands away.  She stared at him in awe, breathing heavily as he just watched her, a smirk on his lips.  

She opened her arms to him, and he crawled over her body, caging her beneath him.  She sighed and pressed a kiss against his shoulder.  His body pressed against hers just so, his skin warming hers beneath him.  

He was still hard between her legs, and Rey panted, desperately trying to catch her breath.  She still wanted him, wanted more than just his mouth, but she didn’t know how to tell him.  

She touched his face, running her fingers through his hair.  

“Don’t stop,” she whispered against his ear, rocking her hips upwards to brush against his length.  

He pressed his face into her neck, letting out a slow breath.  

“Rey,” he whispered against her skin.  She bucked up against him again, wrapping her legs around his waist and pulling him to her.  

He groaned and pressed his face into her neck more insistently.  He was aroused, unbearably so, but he was not sure this was something he wanted now.  

“Please,” Rey whined beneath him.  

Kylo pulled away from her, gazing down at her flushed face.  She watched him, her gaze heavy with want, glowering with the pleasure she found earlier, a memory at the thought of having him inside of her.  

He breathed hard when he gripped himself in his hand, pressing his cock against her entrance.  She was still wet from her orgasm and her arousal.  

“I’m sure,” Rey responded before he could even asked.  Pushing her hips downwards against the weeping tip of his cock,  Kylo tensed and shuddered above her, pressing himself somewhat deeper.  She was tight around him so he went slowly, allowing her time to stretch around him.

Rey closed her eyes, her forehead wrinkling as if she was in pain.  

He stilled inside of her, moving to pull back his lips.  She caught him with her legs and held him there.  She grunted in discomfort as he slid in deeper in response to her pressing her feet against his back.  

“Are you alright?” he asked. 

Rey nodded, but didn’t speak.  The pressure of him inside of her felt strange, but not unpleasant.  She wasn’t used to feeling something like this, an intimate closeness with another person.  The closest she was had to this is Finn, and this was something she would never do with him.  

Before now all she had known were her own fingers, thin and small as they pistoned in and out of her.  Now, with barely half of him inside of her, she was nearly overwhelmed.  

She arched her back, widening her legs to make it easier.  He hissed under his breath, heart hammering.  

“Is this your first time?” he asked, pressing more of himself into her as she gasped and sighed.  

“Yes,” she whispered.    

“Am I hurting you?” Kylo stilled his hips again, ready to pull out of her if that was the case.  

“No, no,” she responded, pressing her heels against his back to push him further. “Feels different.”  

“Oh,” he said, pressing himself inside of her until he was sheathed completely.  She sighed when she felt all of him, warm and pulsing inside of her.  She contracted her muscles, clenching around him.  He moaned, head pitching forward, his hair tickling the skin of her shoulder.  

She did it again.  He whined and moved his hips, thrusting into her to drive her to distraction.  It worked, she stopped teasing him, sighing and rolling her hips to meet his.  

He felt amazing.  He filled her completely, thrusting until she was mad with pleasure.  She rolled her hips to meet every thrust, pressing against him and burying him inside of her to the hilt every time he pulled out.  

He whispered her name like a prayer, breathing hard and fast against her skin.  

“I won’t last much longer,” he said, thrusting into her hard and fast.  She was lost beneath him, she felt like she was floating, her body so engaged in the way he made her feel.  

The pleasure was so intense, she knew nothing else aside from her coupling with him.  She felt every thrust, every drag of his cock inside of her.  The pressure of him filling her.  

“Then come,” she told him as if it was the easiest thing in the world.  He sputtered above her, almost losing control at the sound of her command.  

“Now,” she commanded, bucking her hips against him at a bruising pace even when he slowed, trying to draw this out.  

“ _ Please _ ,” she moaned, and he was undone.  He emptied himself into her, his body twitching helplessly as he came.  His thrusts were erratic and hard, cock pulsing, low moans of pleasure escaping his lips.  

He pulled out of her before he could collapse on top of her body.  He rolled to the side, lying half on the cold tile floor, and half on the nest of blankets.  Rey sighed happily and turned towards him, curling her body against his.  

“Was that your first time?” she asked after a long silence settled over them.  Kylo was half asleep, still trembling from his orgasm.  

“No,” he admitted readily.  

“Oh,” Rey said, pressing herself closer to him to steal his warmth.  The room had suddenly grown cold in the wake of their lovemaking.  

Another long silence settled between them.  Kylo could feel his admission on his lips, but he kept them closed, holding himself back from telling her his feelings.  

It didn’t last as long as he hoped.  

“I’ve never felt like this about anyone,” he admitted, breaking the silence and brushing his fingers over her back.  Rey nuzzled his chest, pressing a hand against his hip.  

“I know,” she told him and he couldn't help but smile.  

*****

They fell asleep on the floor of the hospital room, naked and wrapped up in one another.  Neither of them was ready to move or let go of the other.  

Kylo woke first, shifting a little under the weight of Rey pressed into his chest.  

He opened his eyes slowly, gazing down at her with a soft smile on his face.  The overhead lights of the room were still on, bathing them both in a pale yellow light.  

She was beautiful, even under the canopy of fluorescent lights.  Her body pressed against his, curled into him to sap up his warmth as if he was the sun.  

He moved his hand up, cupping her face and brushing his thumb across the seam of her lips.  She stirred beneath him, trying to turn her face away from his hand and bury it in his chest.  He smiled again. It seemed as though he couldn’t stop with her around.  

He rolled her onto her back and she moaned, still sleepy from their earlier lovemaking.  

“Rey,” he whispered, pressing open-mouthed kisses against her neck and chest.  She inhaled sharply, hands finding his hair.  He pulled away to look at her, her eyes closed, her face serene.  

He moved lower, long black hair trailing over her skin in the wake of his lips.  Rey shivered, moaning softly, still half-asleep and overcome by pleasure.  She could feel every kiss like lightning down her spine.

“Kylo,” she moaned when he spread her legs, kissing and nipping at her thighs.  Rey sighed and whined, her mind still sluggish from sleep.  Kylo dipped his head between her legs, his tongue finding her clit immediately.  

Rey moaned, long and low as Kylo’s tongue teased her clit.  Her hands threaded through his hair, massaging his scalp with her fingers.  He moaned against her, and she could feel the vibrations against her.  She sighed rolling her hips.  

Kylo held her still, moving his tongue against her, quicker and quicker until her fingers were pulling at his hair, scratching at his scalp.  Her muscles were tight, straining against the feeling of his mouth on her.  

She came with a long, low moan, untangling her fingers from his hair.  He rested his head on her hip and stared up at her, watching in wonder as she tried to catch her breath.  She was panting, her chest rising and falling rapidly.  He did that to her.  

He moved to lay next to her again, running his fingers through her hair as she came back down.  When she opened her eyes, she gave him a look that shot straight to his groin.  

Rey was sore between her legs, but the ache she felt now was something entirely different.  She rolled onto her side, pressing her hand against Kylo’s chest and pushing him onto his back.  

He watched her with wide eyes, licking his lips in anticipation.  She kissed him, moving to sit atop his waist.  His cock pressed against her back, twitching as she experimentally slid her bare skin against it.  

She leaned forward, kissing him again, sliding the skin of her back and ass against his cock.  He sighed into her mouth, whining when she pulled away and reached one of her hands back to cup his length, sliding her hand up and down the underside of his erection.  The skin was soft and sensitive beneath her fingers.  He panted, bucking his hips up into her hand, desperate for more of her.  

Rey lifted her hips, sliding herself back to hover over him, moving to grip him in her other hand and line him up with her entrance.  

He should have done this with her at the palace, he realized.  When they’d had more time to explore each other, when the Resistance wasn’t marching on the palace. 

He moved to sit up, the thought nearly sobering him until Rey pushed him back down, pressing the head of his cock into her.  

His mind went blank as she slid down onto his cock, burying him inside of her.  He pressed his thumbs against her hip bones when she rolled against him.  

It was obvious that she was inexperienced, but it didn’t make the pleasure any less intense.  She moaned on top of him, the sounds distorted as she moved up and down, her hair blocking her face from his view.  

He didn’t dare wonder what he’d done to deserve this, because he already knew he didn’t deserve her.  

When she came to him in the palace, the first time he saw her in his room, he viewed her as someone to get rid of,  someone to destroy in order to get what he had always wanted.  But in the end, she showed him what he had thought he wanted wasn’t at all what he cared about.  

He didn’t want to rule the kingdom that Snoke had created.  What good was power if it didn’t offer up any real change?  The Provinces of Jakku had been stagnant and suffering for too long.  They needed a strong leader, someone much stronger than him, to lead them out of the mess they were in.  

Rey moaned, scratching her fingernails across his chest, bringing him out of his self-loathing and back into the intense sensations of pleasure.

“R-ey,” he moaned, drawing out the syllable of her name in warning.  He was close already.  

She hunched forward over him, grinding her hips against his to whisper in his ear.  She was begging him, telling him, commanding him.  He came, gripping her hips and holding her against him as he jerked upwards, fucking her through his orgasm.  Rey gasped above him, her face pressed into his neck, panting into his ear.  

He shuddered, shivering from the intensity of his orgasm.  Rey sighed against his neck, kissing the skin of his throat softly.  His head felt light, heart pounding in his chest.  

Rey slowly raised her hips, releasing him from inside of her.  He gasped, hands circling her thighs at the sensation.  

Neither of them said anything for a long time.  Both of them thought about the Resistance and their impending battle with the Palace Guard.  The silence between them was heavy and dark, filled with fear and doubt.  

“We need to bathe,” Rey said, finally, not ready to let go of the intimacy and silence the two of them had shared.  

Beyond the door, beyond this base, they would have no silence, no intimacy.  Depending on the outcome of the battle, Kylo would have to answer for all the things he had done, or Rey would answer to Snoke.  There was nothing else either of them could do to escape what was now inevitable.  

All they could do was stall for time.  

He followed her into the bathing room in silence.  He was still covered in sweat and the slick of her sex.  

Part of him didn’t want to wash; he wanted to remember the feeling of her, the warmth and wetness between her thighs.  He wanted to remember the way she topped him, fingernails scratching against his chest and arms as he came.  Her breath on his ear, begging him to finish.  

He wanted to keep that with him when they both left, walking out into the uncertainty the world held for them.  He wanted to wear her like a brand on his skin, her scent covering him, staking her claim.  After a lifetime of belonging to politics, now he was finally free to belong to someone like her.

Already, he had never felt more clean.  Before he even touched the water, he felt as though she had bathed him in fire.  Purified every inch of him, chasing away the dark webbing that was ever-present in the back of his mind, something he now recognized as Snoke’s control over him.  

She waded into the pool first, submerging her body in water.  She was waist deep before she turned to him, beckoning.  He followed, finding the memory of her did not fade with the water rushing over his skin.  

The brand was still there, white hot and burning bright in his mind.  He brushed his hands over his skin, washing away the evidence of their intimacy.  

Rey waded to the other side of the pool, grabbing a small wooden bucket and dipping it into the water.  He watched her, running his wet hands through his hair.  She hesitated for a moment, as though she was self-conscious beneath his gaze.  Then she brought the bucket up and dumped it over her head.  

When she’d wet her hair well enough, she offered the bucket to him.  He took it and followed suit.  He already washed his hair earlier, but he was not in a position to deny her anything.   

Rey moved to a different side of the pool, grabbing soap and filling a different bucket as to not pollute the water with suds.  She placed the items on the edge, moving to climb out, but Kylo caught her wrist.

She looked at him, hair wet and plastered to her face.  He placed a soft kiss against her lips, pressing his forehead to hers when he pulled away.  The impending sense of their inevitable parting of ways tugged at him, tightening his chest.  

Rey offered him an easy smile.  She tried to be reassuring, but she knew better than to believe it would be any different.

“I’m glad you came here,” she told him, “I’m glad I found you.”  He nodded in agreement, pulling away from her so that she could exit the pool to wash up.  

“Me too,” he said.  It didn’t make the weight in his chest any lighter.


	14. The Battle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The battle with Snoke. The last full chapter before the epilogue.

It was night by the time the two of them ventured out of the base.  There was no one there to stop them, to prevent them from raising the base entrance from the ground.  The only people left behind had long since gone to bed, or had other duties to occupy their time.  

Besides, Kylo believed everyone would rest easier knowing he’d left their base,  even if they saw that he’d taken Rey as well.  To them, she had already been tainted by the darkness that they believe lived inside of him.  He was a monster, after all.  

He already knew.  

They took speeders from the hangar, knowing full well that without them they’d never catch the Resistance militia before they arrived at the palace.  On foot, as some of the resistance soldiers were, it would take the better part of a day and a half for them to get there,  longer if they ran into the special operations team on the way.  

“Are you ready?” Rey asked him, holding her helmet in her hands. 

“No,” he told her honestly, turning his own helmet over and over.  She nodded at him in understanding, because she wasn’t ready either.  Though, she supposed that you’re never truly ready to walk into what could very well be your last few moments of life. She knew the Resistance would have the upper hand with the two of them there to help, but it didn’t make it any less terrifying.  

Kylo abandoned his helmet on the seat of his speeder, pulling her to him by gripping her hips.  She yelped in surprise, but found herself smiling up at him.  

He smiled back, leaning down and kissing her.  He kissed her like he was saying good-bye, and she could taste the sorrow on his lips.  She kissed him like it was her last day on earth, holding him as close as she could.  

At least they would always have what happened between them here in the quiet of this empty base.  No one could take that away.

They were both breathless when they finally pulled away, wind whipping sand up around them.  He stared at her, his eyes filled with such an intense sense of longing Rey felt her knees go weak. 

A long silence passed between them.  It said enough without them having to say anything at all.  Words weighed heavily on both of them, but in the end, they both decide to remain silent.   

Instead, they slipped their helmets over their heads and started their engines.  They came to life with a loud roar, rumbling against the sand.  With a wayward glance back at Kylo and the Resistance base, Rey set off into the desert, her speeder lurching forward.

Kylo followed.

*****

The Resistance made camp after Phasma and her troops were defeated.  There were wounded to tend to and dead to bury from both sides.  Leia would not give in to the cruelty of leaving Phasma’s soldiers without a proper burial even though she had no doubt that Phasma would have left her troops unburied if she was given the chance.  Leia, however, was above that. 

By the time night fell over the desert, the last of the dead had been lowered beneath the sand.  Leia gave out the order for her troops to settle in, watching from the edge of the camp as they pitched temporary shelters and tended to the wounded.

If they had kept marching, the whole militia would have reached the palace by nightfall.  However, after facing Phasma’s battalion, they chose to regroup and send a few of the more mobile members of the militia ahead to send intelligence back.  

Leia wandered back through the camp, heading for the tent the officers had set up.  She needed to work on strategy for tomorrow and check to see if the soldiers she had sent to the palace had reported in yet.  Communication links were a rare thing since the great war, but the Resistance had always made do with what they had.  

Currently they only had nine communication links in their possession and not all of them reported to the same frequency.  Leia felt as though this left them exposed, unprepared, but there was nothing they could do.  Most of the communication links they had found in the base were dead on arrival, and there were no spare parts available to fix them.  

Inside the officer’s tent, everyone was quiet.  There was a somber energy in the air, and Leia understood why.  A small troop had taken out far too many valuable members of their team.  They had won, but the victory had come at a price.  

“General,” the officers addressed her when she entered, out of respect for her station.  She nodded at them and took her place at the war table.  

There wasn’t much for them to deliberate.  Most of the fight against the palace would result in brute force.  It would be man against man.  Leia didn’t have much intel on the palace armies, because most of the time they stayed inside the gates.  

The only upper hand the Resistance had now was Finn.  He knew some of their strategies under Phasma, but since she was their captive now, Finn couldn’t be certain the soldiers would use the same strategies under a different officer.  

Now all they could do was wait to hear back from the soldiers they had sent ahead.  

“Have we heard from Alpha team at all?” Leia asked.

“Negative.”  

Leia nodded.  Worth a shot.

*****

Rey and Kylo drove until the sun began to creep up over the horizon.  They tracked the Resistance for miles, finding their base camp from the night before.  They chose not to stop, worried the Resistance might mistake them for enemies or raiders. Rey found evidence that another group had gone ahead, possibly on a reconnaissance mission.  She was convinced Finn and Poe would be in that group. She needed to warn them about Snoke.  

Kylo followed after her, the two of them only stopping to eat and rehydrate.  They never spoke, the weight of what they were about to do weighing heavily on both of them.  He could feel the sting in his eyes when he looked at her, the regret of what he had become.  He could have been someone unremarkable, someone who could have loved her.

Now there was nothing he could do to prevent what was happening.  He could only try to put a stop to what Snoke was planning.  

They tracked the smaller group to just outside of the palace.  When they arrived, they found their small camp empty.  

Rey gave him a look.  The camp was ransacked, packs and rations thrown haphazardly to the ground.  She felt fear rising in her chest at the thought of what had happened there.  

“Do you think?” she asked in a whisper.  Kylo didn’t answer. Instead he looked behind her at the palace in the distance.  

“Kylo?” she asked when he had been silent for too long.  He didn’t know what to say to her.  He shook his head and winced, not wanting to meet her gaze.

As far as he could recall, the guard never took prisoners.  If they had been here, there was no way this section of the Resistance would have survived.  He supposed it was a good sign that no one had been executed on the spot.  

Perhaps they had rendezvoused with the rest of the militia already.  Honestly, that was the most likely scenario if there were people still left alive.  

“I don’t know,” he told her, his voice low and quiet. “We should...keep going.”  

Rey looked like she was going to protest.  They couldn't exactly storm the palace on their own.  They needed the rest of the Resistance; they were only there to offer support.  

The palace loomed over them the closer they get to the gate.  Rey could see the curves of marble and gold that make up the top of it just above the impossibly high stone wall.  

Rey and Kylo slowly made their way around the wall to the gate, searching for any guards stationed in the towers along the way.  They were all empty, which put both of them on high alert.  

Rey was anxious, her chest tight, skin crawling with every step she and Kylo took.  Something seemed wrong here, more wrong than usual.  

“He’s expecting us,” Kylo said when they passed the main guard tower and it too was empty.  

Rey turned her head towards him, watching his face pale.  He was nervous and scared; she could practically feel it like it was a part of her.  She held her breath as she watched him, his eyes wide and shining, teeth gritted, brow furrowed.  

“Snoke?” she asked, her voice low and quiet.  He nodded once, confirming her fears.  She should have expected this. They were never going to catch Snoke with his guard down.

He turned his gaze towards her, looking away from the sand colored stone wall.  She met his eyes and they watched each other for a long moment.  

His emotions bubbled to the surface, his eyes flashing with unease and terror.  She was sure she was mirroring his expression, her own fear sitting low in her abdomen.  She could feel it weigh on her like lead.

Yet, there was something important and unspoken between them.   _ We have to try _ .  

She turned away from him then, tilting her head back to look at the parts of the palace she could see.  Her stomach churned at the thought of coming face to face with Snoke again, but she couldn't deny Kylo this.  She couldn't deny the people of Jakku their freedom from this monster.  There was nothing left to do but try.  

“I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” Kylo said under his breath, shaking his head.  Rey watched him, waiting for him to take his first steps towards redemption.  

He didn’t disappoint her.

Kylo took a deep breath and walked through the gates first, his head held high and his hand gripping the hilt of his saber at his hip.  Rey followed after him, unarmed, a terrible oversight to be sure.

Inside the palace gates, everything was quiet.  There were no people in the courtyard.  Nothing moved or made a sound. It was as though the palace had been abandoned.  

They walked through the courtyard together, a feeling of unease settling over both of them.  

Kylo felt Snoke before he saw him.  The air around him felt heavy and dark, like tendrils of smoke and ash rising up to block the sun.  His stomach roiled and he swallowed down the bile in his throat.  

Next to him, Rey stilled, her body tensing.  She looked at him, her eyes filled with understanding and fear.  Her hands twitched uselessly at her sides, her lips twisting into a frown.  There was no doubt in his mind that she felt it too.  

Neither of them moved any closer, listening to the sounds of feet approaching.  Kylo could hear them far off, could feel the life within them as they approached.  The entire army was marching to them, an army of people loyal to Snoke.  

And here they were, the two of them waiting to face an entire army and the evil that led it.

Rey gripped Kylo’s hand, lacing her fingers through his as they both stared ahead.  He shivered at her touch and gripped her hand in return.  

The Palace Guard surrounded them, their faces cruel and impassive.  None of them showed any sort of fear of him despite who he used to be, what he used to represent.  No, now they were here to kill him in the name of their supreme leader, his father’s advisor, Snoke.  

“How wonderful to see you again, Kylo Ren,” Snoke said, parting his way through the guard to reach where he and Rey stood at the center.  Rey’s muscles tensed, her hand gripping his more insistently.  

Kylo stood his ground, staring down his former mentor and captor.  He said nothing to him, his mouth closed in a firm, straight line.  

“And you’ve brought the street rat,” he drawled, raking his eyes over where Rey stood at his side.  Kylo’s nostrils flared, clenching his other hand harder around the hilt of his saber.  

Snoke’s beady black eyes followed the motion of his hand twitching, his mouth turning upwards into a smile.  His eyes flashed with something sinister, a sick sense of joy settling over his features.  

“Protective of your little scavenger rat from Jakku, aren’t you?” Snoke asked, his gaze flicking back up from Kylo’s hand on his saber to meet his eyes.  

“Tell me girl,” Snoke began, his eyes still locked with Kylo. “Are you willing to die for him?” He turned to her then, his gaze settling on her face.  Her jaw was clenched and locked, facial muscles tensing at the sight of the monster before her.  

She didn’t answer him.  She didn’t have to. He already knew the answer.  

She was yanked from Kylo’s side, pulled forward by an invisible force burning in the air around her.  Her fingers slipped free from Kylo’s in an instant, launching her across the courtyard before Snoke before either of them could stop it.

His large greyed and decaying hands were on her throat.  His gaze was on Kylo.

“I should strangle her,” Snoke said to him. Rey made pathetic choking noises as she struggled to take in air. “Like you strangled my son.”

Kylo pulled his saber free from his side and ignited the red blade.  Snoke showed absolutely no fear, his long fingers tightening on Rey’s throat.  

Her eyes glazed over, her fingers trying desperately to pry the monster’s hands free.  The hum of Kylo’s saber sounded from behind her, almost drowned out by the sound of her choking.  

“What a waste,” Snoke said. “You had so much potential.  We could have done great things.”  

“Release her,” Kylo said with conviction.  Snoke chuckled.

“You’re not in any position to make demands, Kylo Ren,” the monster said.  He tightened his hold on Rey’s throat, pain searing through her body.  Then he loosened it, giving her enough time for a breath before he choked her again.  

He was playing with her.  He was playing with  _ them _ . 

“I’m afraid I have the upper hand,” Snoke remarked, nodding to the guard that surrounded them.  

“Not for long,” Kylo admitted.  Behind him, not very far off he could sense the presence of the Resistance.  

Snoke looked over Kylo’s head and out into the desert in the distance.  He didn’t look concerned at all.

“This changes nothing,” Snoke said, squeezing Rey’s airway shut, relishing in the noises she made as she suffocated, “I can still kill her in an instant.”

He could, but he wouldn't.  

“Let her go and you can have me,” Kylo said, his finger hovering over the switch that would deactivate his saber.  

“I don’t want you,” Snoke said, eyeing Rey. “I think killing her would be much more fun.”

“She’s helpless,” Kylo protested, “unarmed, a pawn. I’m what you really want, Snoke.  And I’ll go willingly if you release her.”  

“I won’t fall for this, Kylo Ren,” Snoke responded, privy to his scheme. “I practically raised you, I know this trick.”

Kylo said nothing, listening to the sounds of the Resistance militia getting closer.  Snoke heard them too, but he didn’t acknowledge them.  His belief that the Palace Guard would protect him was ignorant.  Or so Kylo hoped.

“You’re such a disappointment,” Snoke said, his spidery fingers loosening on Rey’s throat again, “You could have had so much power.  For shame.”

The sound of the resistance was a roar behind him now. The Palace Guard finally heard them, shifting to see the oncoming army.  They were at his back, surrounding the Palace Guard when Kylo finally spoke.

“For the revolution,” he said darkly, his words echoed by the resistance behind him, their shouting loud and boisterous.  Kylo was surprised, startled by their acceptance of him, as was Snoke.

Snoke’s fingers were loose on Rey’s throat when she felt a surge of power and propelled herself backwards, into Kylo’s chest.  The sound of the Resistance shouting behind them was overwhelming.  She gasped for air, clutching at her throat and greedily filling her lungs.  

Kylo caught her without incident, deactivating his saber, his arms wrapping around her quickly with a soft noise of surprise.  Rey wanted nothing more than to turn around and bury her face in his chest, willing away the inevitable battle that was forming around them, but she didn’t.

Instead, she straightened up and squared her shoulders, glaring at Snoke as she panted for breath.  He watched her, eyes narrowed and dark.  

“You’ll regret that,”  Snoke growled, reaching his hand to her again.  Kylo wrapped one of his hands around her bicep and held her to him protectively, reactivating his saber.  

Rey’s eyes glazed over as the red light glowed over her skin.  He pressed her close to him, holding her behind the blade and brandishing it against his former mentor.  The monster only smirked at him in response.

“You can’t protect her from me, Kylo,” he said, his voice low and filled with venom. “Sooner or later I always get what I want.”  

“Not this time.” The air was heavy around them, filled with power and darkness.  Rey felt the weight of it, rooted to her place in front of Kylo, his grip almost bruising on her arm.

She put her hand over his, squeezing his fingers until he let go.  He made a sound of protest at her silent request, but his gaze did not move from Snoke.  Rey moved away from him, from beyond the protection of his blade and back towards the soldiers that surrounded them.  

She was unarmed, but she wasn’t useless.  She didn’t need his protection, she was here for this fight.  They would face Snoke together, with her by his side.  There was no other way.

A calm came over the battlefield in that moment.  There was only the hum of Kylo’s saber and the rhythmic sound of over a thousand men and women breathing.  

Everything moved in slow motion from where Rey was standing, watching everything unfold.  Kylo dropped his stance, legs widening, saber pointed forward, other hand held up.  The Resistance attacked with him, the sound of thousands of soldiers moving at once almost deafening.  

The Palace Guard turned their backs to Kylo and Snoke and faced the Resistance.  Rey’s heart pounded in her chest, hands clenched into fists.  Sweat beaded on her forehead and she could feel her pulse rise up to flutter in her throat, blood rushing in her ears.  

She registered the screaming, the sound of guns discharging, the sounds of men and women dying.  Their lifeforce swirled around her, kicking up like the sand.  She could feel them, could hear them.  Their dying moments were impossibly loud.

Kylo faced forward, his saber slashing an arc at Snoke’s center of gravity and Rey was just  _ standing there _ .  She’d never been in a fight of this magnitude, and she’d never been weaponless.  

The power inside of her lay dormant with the exception of feeling her world dying around her.  The scene around her was pandemonium, but it seemed so far away from her; she felt so far removed.  She  _ watched _ .

Snoke evaded the slash of Kylo’s weapon, his thin body jerking backwards and sending the red blade down into the sand with a flick of his wrist.  Kylo’s mouth opened, his teeth exposed, spittle flying from his mouth when he screamed.  

Rey lurched forward, but stopped when she saw Kylo free himself from the hold, jumping back to approach Snoke from a different angle.  Snoke treated him as though he was a mere annoyance and not at all like a man that was trying desperately to kill him. 

Again she fell by the wayside, a silent observer to the world erupting into chaos around her.  She circled around Kylo, staying in his orbit while he fought his greatest enemy.  She could feel his exhaustion, his fear, his bottomless rage.  

She could feel Snoke, his lifeforce was ash, suffocating every living thing.  He was black as ink spilling over parchment, dripping down into the sands of Jakku and clotting it, killing it slowly.  Rey could see  _ see _ the sort of power he had.  

She could see everything.

She was lost in the sensations of power around her.  The ebb and flow of the battle and loss of life.  There was power here, but there was also fear, and it rose over them like mist, the smell potent and suffocating.  

Kylo struggled against Snoke, blow after blow after blow evaded as a war raged on around them.  She tried to focus on him, to push herself to help, but the presence of so many people around her was distracting.  

She was out of control.  There were too many colors, too many emotions, endless sensations, and the dying of light that came with death.  Her hands were on her head, pressing against her cheeks and temples.  They’d been there for awhile, she realized.  

Someone called her name, a voice out in the sea of chaos.  She turned, finally looking out and seeing the battle around her.  She and Kylo were still surrounded by the Palace Guard, but the Resistance was breaking through to them.  

Obi-Wan drifted above the crowd of sweaty, fighting bodies with his gaze locked solely on her.  Rey dropped her hands back to her sides and looked at him, the battlefield fading away for a moment as he bid her to focus.  Now was the time to fight.  

A flash of light and she had her hands out in front of her, catching a staff, long and cylindrical.  It hummed with power in her hands, coming to life when she touched a small circular switch on the side.  

Bright green light burst forth from the ends of the staff, the perfect complement to Kylo’s red.  

The next part felt like a dream.  She was beside Kylo, his forehead creased, his face covered in sweat.  His hair was drenched with it, sticking to his face.  Snoke was barely winded.

Rey moved with him in his next attack, catching Snoke off guard and allowing Kylo to singe the monster’s oversized black robes before he could recover.  Snoke hissed, eyeing the smoking fabric.  He looked back up, hand outstretched and rage overcoming him, pushing Kylo backwards and skidding across the sand.

Rey reached at the same time, feeling the air shimmer and move around her.  She pulled Kylo back to his feet as Snoke descended upon him.  He moved faster than Rey ever thought he was capable of, and Kylo barely made it back on his feet in time to block the onslaught of Snoke’s power unleashed.  

She missed the first few blows, Snoke’s rage fueling his power as he attacked Kylo relentlessly.  Snoke ignored her in favor of ending Kylo’s life.  He underestimated her, pretended her existence was inconsequential.  

Rey had never felt more powerful.  

She was behind him, the loud roar of his enraged screaming fading into background noise when she slashed out, green light slicing and burning through his robes with ease.  The putrid smell of burning flesh filled her nostrils and she winced.  She pressed the blade deeper, Snoke’s body twitching away from the heat of the blade.  

He thrusted her away with a wave of his hand, turning and advancing on her.  Rey struggled back to her feet, straightening and raising her staff, twisting and twirling it in her hands to ward off Snoke’s advance.  

Kylo lunged after Snoke, watching in desperation when he saw Rey struggle to keep the monster at bay.  He was behind the other man in an instant, the slash of his red blade joining the wound Rey left on Snoke’s back.  

Snoke roared in pain, spittle flying from his open mouth, lips drawn back over what few teeth he had left.  He turned his head over his shoulder, reaching to thrust Kylo away again.  Rey acted swiftly, slashing her green blade at Snoke’s center, pressing the heat of the blade against his abdomen.  

It sliced through his stomach, exposing charred skin and pink muscles and sinew beneath.  Rey could see it from the gaping hole she had made in his robes, oozing and tearing his paper thin skin.  

“I should have killed you when I had the chance,” Snoke hissed, gripping Rey’s wrist in his long, spidery fingers and yanking her up from the ground.  Rey yelped in surprise, struggling to free herself from Snoke’s grasp.  

He ripped her staff from her hands, throwing it down to the ground.  The green blades were still ignited, the color bleeding out over the sand, heating the grains beneath the steady flow of light.  Rey stared down at it in horror before she looked up to face the monster before her.

His lips twisted in a cruel sneer, his eyes black like coal, face contorted in rage.  She was so close to him that all she could smell was the putrid stench of his skin burning.  She gasped and tried to hold her breath, still struggling to free her arm.  

She saw Kylo out of the corner of her eye, back on his feet and lunging forward.  His saber was in front of him, his feet dragging through the sand.

Snoke reached his hand out for Rey’s saber, calling the object to him.  Rey watched in fear as it came to him, still ignited, glowing hot and green close to the skin of her arms.  

She struggled, her arm aching from the way Snoke was holding her.  Her shoulder was on fire with pain, the weight of her body pulling against where her shoulder and arm join.  

“Perhaps you wish to know what it feels like to be burned,” Snoke growled.  Rey reached upwards with her other hand, trying to use her power against him to secure her release.  He didn’t budge.

His large hand squeezed her wrist tighter, warding off her attempts to escape with ease.  He laughed, low in his throat when she tried again.  

Snoke pressed the green light of her staff against her exposed calf.  She bit her tongue until it bled to keep from giving him the satisfaction of hearing her scream.  His dark eyes danced with amusement when her eyes teared up from the pain.  

He moved the saber away from her calf and higher, branding her thigh.  Her clothing sizzled, the stench of burning fabric mingling with that of of burning skin.  Rey opened her mouth and gagged, screaming as she did so.  

Snoke merely watched her, the corners of his mouth quirked upwards in a cruel smile, his black eyes glittering in the green light of her staff.  He moved the blade higher still, giving Rey a short reprieve from the excruciating pain.  

Then he pressed the staff into her hip, another brand of white hot pain.  She clenched her fists and cried out, crying in earnest now.  Snoke laughed mockingly, chastising her for not being strong enough.  

Far off, Finn screamed out her name in horror.  She was still dangling from Snoke’s grasp, but she could hear Kylo getting closer.  She opened her eyes again when Snoke removed the blade of light from her sizzling and bubbling skin.  

She gasped and panted for breath, tears streaming down her face when Snoke raised the green blade to her throat.  She swallowed, eyes wide and filled with fear.  

Kylo roared, slashing his blade through the air in an arc.  He hit Snoke’s back, striking the man down to his knees.  Rey broke free of him in his distraction, pushing away from him hastily.  She pried her staff out of his hands while he was focused on Kylo, black eyes filled with loathing.  

Snoke turned on Kylo, the brunt of his power focusing on him.  Kylo was on the ground before he could react, his saber burning into the bottom of his robes.  The fabric smoked and sizzled beneath the red blade and Kylo tried desperately to rise from the sand.  

“Useless,” Snoke growled, his tall and monstrous form hovering over Kylo, casting a crude shadow over him. “I don’t know what I ever saw in you.”  

Kylo didn’t either.  

Snoke called Kylo’s saber to him as he had Rey’s.  Behind them, Rey’s heart was pounding, muscles tense with fear.  

Snoke’s large hand circled around the hilt of Kylo’s blade, aiming it downwards.  The glow of the red beam bathed Kylo’s skin, shining in his wide, fearful eyes.  

Rey watched in horror as Snoke brought the blade down, stabbing and slashing at Kylo’s shoulder and chest.  Kylo shrieked in pain, his body convulsing as Snoke carved into him.  It took her a moment to realize she was screaming too.  

She rushed forward, staff raised, every sound fading to a dull roar in the background.  The pain in her leg and hip was nonexistent thanks to the adrenaline pumping through her veins.  Snoke didn’t even turn around, he was so focused on torturing Kylo.  

Rey watched as Kylo’s face twisted in pain and terror as Snoke destroyed him with his own weapon.  Rey screamed, raising her staff close to her, the heat of the blade warming her thighs.  

Snoke drew back Kylo’s saber, raising it over his head and bringing it down over Kylo’s chest. Rey’s throat felt raw from screaming, her head pounded with the feeling of fear and death that rose in the air around them.  

Kylo Ren was going to die.

She readied her own staff, pointing it towards Snoke as she ran.  

“For my legacy,” Snoke growled at Kylo with malice, bringing the saber down swiftly to strike through his heart.  

Kylo’s eyes were wide and filled with fear.  His heart throbbed, ready to explode in his chest.  He waited for the pain, vision unfocused and filled with terrified tears.  His eyes burned, and the hairs on his arms stood on end.  

Rey’s voice tore through the symphony of terror around him.  

She was close by, the hum of her staff loud in his ears.  The glowing green light of her blades filled his vision.  

She stood behind Snoke, roaring as she stabbed the blade of her staff directly through his chest.  Snoke’s eyes were wide with wonder for a moment. His head turned, jerking over his shoulder to stare at Rey.  

Rey was in awe, staring at the hole her blade left in his chest.  Snoke’s neck was twisted at an odd angle as he looked at her.  It was obvious he hadn’t expected something so violent from her.  He’d ignored her for most of the battle, only using her to torment Kylo. In his eyes she was useless.

Rey was anything but.  

“You shouldn’t have underestimated me,” Rey said, shoving the staff into him more insistently.  Snoke dropped Kylo’s saber to the ground, the blade shutting off as soon as it hit the ground.  

Snoke smiled at her then, his dark eyes taking on a sinister gleam.  He chuckled, his mouth twisting into a gruel grin.  

“You shouldn’t underestimate me, street rat.”

Kylo was back on his feet, scrambling to stand up.  He gripped his saber and brandished it against Snoke despite the pain tearing through him.  His body was coated in searing wounds, his skin stretched uncomfortably as he flexed, stabbing his own saber through Snoke.

A strange hush fell over the battlefield.  Every eye was on Rey, Kylo, and Snoke.  The only sound was the humming of their blades and the low rumbling chuckle coming from Snoke’s dying body.

“You’re still a fool, Kylo Ren,” Snoke said, his words ringing with finality.      

Rey pulled her staff back, watching as the green light of her blade sizzled and popped as she pulled it free from the wound in Snoke’s chest.  Kylo’s saber followed, giving way for Snoke to fall on his knees between them.  

He was dead by the time he hit the ground.  His black eyes were wide and void of life, his lips still twisted in a cruel smile. Everything about this made Rey feel uneasy, but she couldn’t ignore the fact that they had  _ succeeded _ in their mission. 

Everything was silent around them as she raised her eyes to meet his gaze.  He looked surprised, terrified,  _ exhausted _ .  His skin was scorched and ruined by his saber.  His arm hung limp by his side, immobile from the excruciating pain of the wound in his shoulder. His neck and jaw were burned black from the heat of his blade.

Her heart raced as they stare at each other, adrenaline still pumping through her veins.  Her whole body was trembling now. It was all  _ too much _ . 

Kylo’s mouth was open, lips parted as he pants for breath.  His eyes were wet and cloudy.  It took Rey a moment to realize that he was crying.  

“We did it,” Rey said, a startled laugh escaping her lips.  

“We did it,” Kylo repeated, more tears streaming down his face as he fell to his knees. “I’m free.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What a journey! Thank you to everyone who has been patient with me. It means a lot. And kudos to anyone who noticed the titles of the chapters are all songs from the Aladdin Disney soundtrack (with some names changed, if need be).


	15. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The final chapter...

**Thick black smoke rose** from Snoke’s body over the battlefield, covering everything in darkness and the scent of decay.  Rey covered her mouth and gagged, choking on it.  She fell to her knees opposite of Kylo, her eyes watering, hands covering her face.

She closed her eyes tight, willing it to go away.  She tried to escape it until she was curled into a ball against the sand, her heart hammering and lungs screaming for clean air.

Distantly, she was aware someone was calling out to her.  

“I told you not to underestimate me,” Snoke’s voice repeated over and over again in her head. 

_ One year later _

Rey woke with a start, gasping and clutching at her throat.  Next to her Kylo jolted upright at the sudden displacement of her weight.  She panted from her nightmare, reaching for him when panicked tears began to fall down her face.  

She pressed her face into his chest and his arms wrapped around her immediately.  He pressed soft kisses to the top of her head, smoothing his hands over her hair.  

“Shh, Rey, shh,” he said, his voice soft and calm as she cried into him.  It had been a year since they defeated Snoke, but Rey was still plagued by nightmares of her vision in the aftermath of his death.  

Kylo could remember what it looked like.  He’d fallen to the ground after Snoke’s defeat, after they both had been so overjoyed.  Then she was struck by a terrible vision of black smoke poisoning all of Jakku.  

From the vantage point of everyone else, the scene was strange.  Rey’s body still against the sand, next to the corpse of the tyrant they had just erased from existence together.  

It took hours to coax Rey free from the terror of her vision.  She had never been the same after that, not even now.  

In the wake of the battle of Jakku, General Organa, his  _ mother _ —his heart still ached at the thought that she was alive and not just something he had made up as a child to cope with loneliness—had laid her claim to the land.  No one disputed her.  The Palace Guard had been decimated by the Resistance. 

The last surviving soldiers pledged their allegiance, ordered to do so by Captain Phasma herself in the wake of Snoke’s demise.  Jakku was much better off.  

The change didn’t happen overnight.The destruction of everything General Organa had once had in place to benefit the people of Jakku had set them back immensely.  Snoke had ensured that even in death he would cast a dark shadow over the sands of Jakku.  

This was something many seemed to believe was the true meaning behind Rey’s vision that day on the battlefield.  

Rey had never been convinced of that.  Even Obi-Wan had sided with her, the two of them cryptic and mysterious in the wake of their victory at the palace.  

“It’s okay,” Kylo continued to whisper into her hair.  He pressed more kisses against her temple, her cheek, her jaw.  His hands were a reassuring weight on her back, rubbing up and down and in small circles.  

She sighed, her hiccuping sobs subsiding with his comfort.  However, the eerie feeling that Snoke was coming back to finish what he started stuck with her. 

She hoped she was wrong, but a part of her knew it wasn’t uncommon for powerful sorcerers like Snoke to come back and train a new generation of the magically gifted.  She shivered at the thought.  

Magic didn’t discriminate between the darkness and the light; all it saw was power.  Obi-Wan had told her that once in hushed words when she was still recovering from the shock of her vision.  

She had seen his  _ soul _ , Snoke’s disgusting and crippled pitch black soul leave his body in a cloud of toxic smoke.  The image would be stuck with her for as long as she lived. 

“Are you going back to sleep?” she asked him, untangling herself from him to look out of the windows of their bed chamber.  It was still dark outside, but she knew she wouldn’t be able to sleep.  Not after another nightmare.  

He glanced out at the sky as well and sighed.  

“For a little while,” he told her and she nodded.  Finn would likely be awake by now. He and Poe did drills with the soldiers before the sun rose over the horizon to warm the sands.

Everyone had fallen so easily into their new roles after the palace had become theirs.  But Rey was still struggling to fill her role as the  _ Princess _ of Jakku.  She couldn’t help but think the title had been wasted on her.  She had proven time and time again that she was in no way royalty.  No matter how many times Leia tried to convince her that it didn’t matter, she still never truly felt like she belonged to that world.  

Truthfully, the only place she ever felt that she belonged was by Kylo’s side.  And if that meant she was royalty, then she would have to accept her fate.

He leaned forward and kissed her soundly, bringing her out of her thoughts.

“I love you,” he told her, pressing his forehead against hers.  

“I know,” she responded with a smile, watching as he lay back down to sleep.     

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The end


End file.
